


Ramble On

by Authoressinhiding



Series: Synchronicity [2]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Supernatural
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst and Humor, Gen, Ghosts, Male-Female Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-31
Updated: 2018-04-12
Packaged: 2018-11-07 03:11:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 106,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11050089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Authoressinhiding/pseuds/Authoressinhiding
Summary: There were two choices.  Move on, or go insane.  He knew that.  Everybody knew that.  Hell, even she knew that.  But then, Dean reflected bitterly, Faith had never been one for following the rules. Sequel to Synchronicity.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: If you haven't read Synchronicity, I highly recommend doing that before you try this. Ramble On will follow a slightly different pattern from Sync. There will be fifteen short(ish) chapters, all more or less loosely related. Like Sync, there will be action, adventure, and alcohol intoxication, but the main focus here is once again character development. Predominating POV (at least for the first part) will be Dean's. Buckle up - it's going to be a wild ride.

 

* * *

"Dean."

. . . .

"Dean, you need to get up."

. . . .

"Dude, no offense, but you reek. When was the last time you took a shower?"

. . . .

"Dean - did you drink that bottle of Johnny Walker I hid under the sink?"

. . . .

"Dean. It's three in the afternoon. Please get up."

. . . .

"Have you eaten today?''

. . . .

"Dean - "

He opened two surly eyes and pulled the blankets down from over his head just long enough to glare at his little brother. "Frak off, Sam," he growled. "And get the hell out of my room."

The hunter tugged the blankets back up without waiting to see if his brother would follow orders. There came an irritated sigh, and then the heavy tread of Sam's ginormous feet crossing the floor. The door thudded closed, and he was once again left alone in the darkness.

* * *

**March 5th, 2015, Lebanon, Kansas, 9:30 a.m.**

"Dean -"

"Get out, Sam."

"Sure. Fine. The wake's in two days. If we wanna make it, we should leave today."

" _Out_."

* * *

**March 7th, 2015, Lebanon, Kansas, 8:25 a.m.**

This time when the door opened, Dean didn't give Sam a chance to start in on him. "Get out," he demanded from beneath the pillow currently smashed down over his face. When the door did not immediately close, he repeated, "Out, Sam. _Now_."

"We're not Sam."

Brief panic lanced through him like lighting, racing its way from his guts to the top of his skull, and then he recognized the voice. That was Lily. Someone flipped the lights on.

"Up, Dean." The blankets were ripped away from him, and Becka tugged the pillow out of his grasp. Tossing it to the floor, she regarded him with her steely gray gaze.

Furious, Dean pushed himself up on this elbows, a tirade of invective already half-formed on his lips. The snarl died away into silence when he actually got a good look at the Slayers. In dark jeans and matching black sweaters, they were a double image of grim disappointment. Lily's always-perfect eyeliner was smudged horribly beneath her left eye. As for Becka, he caught sight of what looked like a half-healed razor mark streaking its way across her wrist.

"What?" he snapped, but most of the anger had vanished from his tone.

"Wake's tonight," said the engineer firmly. Her eyes narrowed as she followed his gaze, and she yanked the sleeve of her sweater down over the still-healing cut. "Time for you to get moving. Flight to LA leaves from Grand Island Regional in three hours. We're all gonna be on it."

"I don't fly," replied Dean, watching as Lily began digging through his dresser in search of clean clothing.

Jaw rigid with tension, the blonde looked up, a pair of his jeans tucked into the crook of her arm. "We don't care. Get your ass out of bed."

"Sam told us everything." Becka abandoned all pretenses of a conciliatory tone. "We know what you've been doing since you talked to Spike. And Lily's right - we don't care."

Dean said nothing, merely shook his head. They didn't understand. He wouldn't - he couldn't. Between the flight and the vultures waiting on the far end of the tarmac, there was no way he was getting anywhere near that plane.

"Get up." Lily threw the jeans halfway across the room, and they smacked into his face, one of the rivets in the pockets cutting his lip. When the hunter still did not move, that seemed to trigger her.

"Get up!" the blonde screamed, and she flew at him, grabbing him by the neck of his t-shirt and hauling him to his feet. Although the hunter had a good sixty-plus pounds and half a foot of height on her, Lily lifted him as easily as she could have lifted a child.

"Put me down," Dean commanded gruffly, although it was difficult to be convincing when the toes of his socked feet were dangling three inches above the ground.

"You shut up," she spat through gritted teeth, shaking him like a rag doll. " _Shut_. _Up_. You are not the only one in pain. You are not the only person who lost her. You think we want to go to that? Me? Or Becka? We _know_ it's going to be a cluster of epic proportions. We _know_ it's going to be drama and mess and apologies that come too late to do anyone any good. But it doesn't matter. We have to go. For Faith. So there's someone on her side to witness the utter ridiculousness of it all."

She lowered him to the floor. "And Faith would want you there. This isn't about you, dumbass. It's about her. Play nice, and I'll give you these on the plane." She pulled an orange prescription pill bottle out of her pocket. "Keep being an idiot, and the Xanax stays with me."

Dean gazed down at her stonily. "So you're saying I have no choice."

"No, you have a choice," cut in Becka. "You always have a choice." The brunette crossed her arms in front of her. "Your choice is this: benzos or no benzos. So, what's it gonna be?"

As he took in the ironlike adamant of their faces, the hunter finally admitted defeat. He retrieved the pair of jeans that had fallen to the floor. "I can be ready in fifteen."

Becka raised an eyebrow. "Showered _and_ shaved?"

"Yeah."

"Come on, then," said Lily brusquely as the hunter finished gathering his clothing.

It was Dean's turn to raise his eyebrows. "You coming in with me, Lil? That the way we're doing things now?"

"No." The blonde grabbed him by the elbow and frog-marched him into the hallway. "But I'm gonna sit outside the door and make sure there's no funny business. Now, move it, Buster Brown."

* * *

As the kitchen door creaked open, Sam looked up from the stove, where he had a pan of half-finished grilled cheese sandwiches cooking in a cast iron frying pan. "Hey," he said gently, noticing Becka's pursed lips and tightly crossed arms. "How'd it go?"

Sighing, the brunette collapsed into a chair at the industrial steel table. "He's getting cleaned up. Lily's supervising. I know you said that he hasn't tried anything yet, but since we're going to have to push him a little harder than usual today, we figured better safe than sorry."

He set a glass of milk and a freshly-made sandwich in front of her, along with a jar of pickles. "Here."

"Thanks." Becka raised the glass to her lips. As she did so, the sleeve of her sweater fell down to her elbow, revealing the four thin cuts just below her wrist.

Sam's eyes followed the movement and then stopped when he saw the marks. "Becka . . ."

Swallowing, the Slayer tugged her sleeve back into place. "Rough week."

The hunter did not say anything, simply kept looking at her, his hazel eyes impossibly soft.

Becka broke the eye contact first. Staring down at her plate, she took the first bite of her grilled cheese. Halfway through chewing, she paused. The brunette pulled the sandwich away from her mouth and examined in more closely. "Are there _chiles_ in here?" she asked rhetorically.

Sam shrugged. "Faith always liked 'em with chiles and pickles. I figured you might do the same."

"I do. Thanks," she repeated, and she exhaled heavily. "It's not a big deal. The cutting. I used to do it, back when I was in high school. When I first found out about the Slayer thing. Lotta pressure. Not a lot of control. So, I cut."

Returning to her sandwich, she continued speaking between bites. "Stopped doing it when Faith - when she took me under her wing. She was, she was like our Watcher, but better. She's the reason Lily and I got to live. And I don't mean just in a 'she saved our asses' kinda way. I wouldn't have gone to college without her. I'd've been consumed, the way Slaying always wants to consume you. But she fought for us, for us to go to school, to balance Slaying with work, to _live_ something like the way we'd dreamed of before the call came - at least a little. She made it not a death sentence.

"And now . . ." Her tone shaking, Becka took another sip of milk and angrily brushed at the milk mustache forming on her top lip. Her eyes glimmered with held-in tears. "She's gone. And I never said thank you. I never told her how - how much -" She gave up on her grilled cheese, and the held-back tears began to fall - one, two, three - from her eyes onto her plate.

"Hey." And then there was Sam. Tall, kind, irritating, confusing, solid, _present_ Sam standing beside her chair, his heavy hand resting on her shoulder, his thumb moving slowly across the seam of her sweater. Becka dragged herself out of her chair and allowed him to pull her in with those long, strong arms. She buried her face against his chest, her shoulders shaking.

The hunter drew her in closer and gently stroked her hair. "It's okay," he told her quietly. "She knew. Faith knew."

* * *

Dean showered as he did everything these days - without thinking. There was still half a bottle of Listerine in the bathroom cabinet, and he downed two quick swallows before getting started. True to his word, he was ready in fifteen.

He opened the bathroom door to find Lily sitting guard across the hallway, her back against the tile wall, her knees drawn up to her chest. Her eyeliner had smudged itself further, and two thick trails of shining tears tracked down her cheeks. She sniffled loudly when he stepped out of the bathroom, her blue eyes thoroughly miserable.

"See. I didn't cut myself. Or escape. You happy?" he snapped sarcastically, still too irritated to cut the Slayer any slack.

Lily shook her head, and a tear dripped off her chin to land on her knee. "I can't stop crying," she admitted, rubbing at her eyes and smudging her makeup even more. "Haven't gone to rehearsal all week. Just keep lying in bed waiting for the front door to open. Hoping that Faith will walk in and ruin all my weekend plans with a Hellmouth problem. I keep thinking I hear her on the stairs, but I never do. And I can't stop crying."

She pushed herself up to her feet, using the wall for support. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to yell at you earlier. I just . . ." She flailed around with her hands. "God, I'm supposed to know how to express things. I do it on stage every night. But this . . . I can't. I don't know how. It just _hurts_."

Uninterested, Dean made a show of checking his watch. "Don't we need to leave for the airport?"

Lily inhaled sharply, as if he had hit her, and then began walking quickly down the hallway. Dean followed, catching up with her when she came to an unfamiliar turn and stopped.

"Come on." He reached for her hand and tugged her to the right. "This way."

* * *

No one spoke in the car on the ninety-minute drive to the airport. Becka texted away furiously in the back seat while Lily slept beside her, her blonde head pressed up against the glass window. Up in shotgun, Sam held the map open on his lap, and his brother drove.

When they finally reached Grand Island, getting through security was a mess - Dean had thrown a bitch fit about leaving his personal arsenal in the Chevy, and Lily had forgotten to remove a switchblade from her backpack. After a flurry of improvised explanations and a fresh round of tears, the TSA agents let them through.

"Amazing what you can do with those baby blues," Dean grumbled at Lily when she and Becka reemerged from the bathroom, having hastily removed her smeared eyeliner.

"Cut it out, man," Sam interjected before he could say anything else.

The Grand Island airport was minuscule, and they arrived at the gate soon after the girls' bathroom pitstop. At last, the Slayers relinquished two 0.5 milligram pills of the promised Xanax. Dean downed them with a sip of water from the fountain.

On the flight, they had three seats together and one in the row behind. Wary of the wild look in his Dean's eyes, Sam volunteered to sit by himself. He folded his long legs into the narrow space between seats and closed his eyes. It had been a nightmare week.

Just a handful of days ago, they had discovered a way to close the gates of Hell, but now his brother was trapped in a hell of another sort, and the first person - the only person - Sam could have asked for help was dead. Sam missed Faith. He _needed_ her. And without her, he had no idea what to do next.

Half an hour later, when the stewardess came around to offer beverages, both Becka and Lily purchased two nips of tequila. Sandwiched in the middle seat between the two of them, Dean watched as they tossed back the liquor with a straightforward vigor that under other circumstances would have made him proud. Then, as if by some unspoken agreement, the Slayers each took hold of one of the hunter's arms, locking their elbows around his.

Becka was the first to fall asleep, her head cocked to one side, her shoulder pressed against Dean's.

The hunter glanced over at Lily. "You two restraining me now?" he asked quietly so as not to be overheard by the rows in front of and behind them. The Xanax had done the trick, washing over him like a magic tide that removed _everything_. For the first time in a week, he could breathe. He had got to get himself some more of this stuff.

Her face dry of tears for once, the blonde looked up at him with a face cleared of makeup and all the younger for it. As he met her eyes, Dean's jaw relaxed. "Go to sleep," he said in a kinder tone, and he patted her on the knee. "I'm not gonna run anywhere."

Lily nodded, curling her arm more closely around his and resting her head against his shoulder. "I know," she said, just louder than a whisper. "There's nowhere for you to run."

In spite of himself, Dean smiled, although it was a thin thing that did not reach his eyes. "You're hers all right," he observed, patting her knee again. This time, he left his hand there for a long few seconds. "She trained you good."

The Slayer squeezed his arm. "So did you."

At his querying look, she chuckled sleepily and squeezed his arm tighter. "What? You think Faith's the only one I got my moves from? I've been watching you since I was fifteen, Dean. Sometimes a girl needs heroes. You and Faith, you were mine."

* * *

**March 7th, 2015, Los Angeles, California, 7:45 p.m.**

Upon arrival in LA, they met a tired-looking Willow near the baggage area. She hugged first Lily and then Becka, and finally turned wide-eyed to the Winchesters. "You're . . . not the hugging type, are you?" she guessed aloud.

"Not exactly," said Becka for them. She nudged Lily with her elbow, and the blonde withdrew the orange pill bottle from her coat pocket. She tipped two more Xanax into her palm and then passed them to Dean.

"Here. For your headache."

Dean swallowed the pills dry. "You parked out front?" he asked the witch, gesturing towards the exit doors with his chin.

"Yeah," the redhead took the cue. "I'm just this way. Follow me."

* * *

On the ride over to the wake, Dean found himself once again squished in the middle seat between the two Slayers, this time for convenience rather than security. After an interminable twenty minutes, Willow slipped her tiny Prius into a narrow space between two black SUV's and shifted into park.

Gritting his teeth, the older hunter followed Becka out of the backseat and onto the sidewalk. He kept to the rear of the group as they entered a tall red-brick apartment building. It was a new place, the elevator nearly as shiny as the glossy BMW's parked outside it. Tenth floor. Apartment 'Q.'

The place was a large two-bedroom with a spacious living room and kitchen. A narrow balcony extended off the living room and over the sidewalk below. It was entirely packed to the gills with young women in their mid- to late twenties, red Solo cups in their hands. At first, Dean didn't recognize anyone in the room, but after a minute he caught sight of a few familiar faces - Andrew, Spike, Buffy, that eye-patched punk called Xander, the one who had told him about the dark Slayer's darkened past all those years ago.

All the hubbub seemed to be centered around a small table set up in the middle of the living room, where an old photo of Faith in a tarnished silver frame and a black stone urn were set up behind a long sheet cake, obviously store bought. The room hushed as their entrance was noted. Everyone fell silent and turned to watch the newcomers, and then they were engulfed in a wave of condolences.

Becka and Lily were instantly lost from sight, swamped beneath the rush of Slayers. Clenching his jaw still further, Dean shoved his hands into his coat pocket as his skin set to crawling. Sam hovered at his brother's side, attempting to make small talk as the Winchesters themselves became the next focus of attention.

The hunters lasted maybe five minutes before Dean lost what little remained of his patience. He pushed through the noise and the hubbub until he reached the door to the balcony, and he stepped at last into the brisk night air. Sliding the glass door closed behind him, Dean let out a long breath of relief. Finally. He was free.

His solitude did not last long. Barely thirty seconds after the door closed, it was pushed back open, and Spike joined him on the balcony.

The vampire passed him a silver flask. "Bourbon. And this." He opened the palm of his left hand to display a silver crucifix on a thin chain, a small green turquoise stone set in the middle.

Dean swallowed thickly. He knew that cross. Clearing his throat, the hunter held out his empty hand. "Thanks."

"Yep." Spike dropped the necklace into his palm. He clapped the hunter on the shoulder and then disappeared back into the apartment.

The blond had hardly been gone for more than a minute before there came a knock on the balcony door and someone else stepped out of the apartment. Glancing at him out of the corner of his eyes, Dean rocked back on his heels in surprise. "Angel."

Angel nodded but said nothing. He simply stood there, hands in the pockets of his long coat, and looked out over the street. After taking a long pull from the flask, Dean extended it in the vampire's direction. Nodding a second time, Angel accepted the bourbon.

For half an hour, they stood in an uneasy silence, passing the flask back and forth until it was empty. Then, for the first time, Angel spoke. "I'll top this up. You want something different this round?"

"Whiskey'd be good. If it's not crap."

"I'll see what I can do."

* * *

Three minutes later, and the door opened a third time.

"That was fast," Dean commented, turning to take the silver flask back from Angel. But his visitor was someone else, someone far shorter and blonder. Possibly the last person that Dean wanted to talk to, bar the douchebag pirate somewhere inside. "You're, uh, not who I was expecting," he said at last, when the blonde did not speak.

"Dean." She stepped forward and tried to put her hand on his arm. "How you holding up?"

"How am I . . ." He let the words trail away, moving out of her reach. "This isn't what she'd want," he complained to change the subject, nodding towards the hubbub inside. "You at least should have the sense to know that."

Buffy did not seem offended by the rebuff. "Yeah," she admitted, stepping up toward the iron railing of the balcony. "I didn't put this together. It's . . . It's kind of the Slayer tradition."

The hunter ran his tongue over his top teeth. He could still taste the dregs of the bourbon. "Well, it blows," he said bluntly. "Our way's better."

"Yours . . ." The blonde wrinkled her nose in distaste. "Salting and burning the bodies of the people you love? Yeah, that sounds loads better."

"Then at least it's you doing it, not some damn crematorium. You lot make sure there was salt involved?" When she did not immediately respond, he shook his head again. "Unbelievable. Am I really gonna have to fix this myself? Go back and do it all . . ." he paused for air, "all over again?"

"It's done, Dean," the Slayer hurried to reassure him. "We took care of it. She'll be at peace. I know . . ." Buffy hesitated and then continued, "I know how much Faith meant to you."

His hands tightening on the wrought-iron rail, the hunter turned his back to her and said automatically, "She wasn't my girlfriend."

"She's dead," said Buffy, her voice pained. For once, she sounded like she actually cared. "You can say the truth when people are dead. The stuff you couldn't or didn't say before. And you don't have to date people to love them."

"Yeah, right," he scoffed. He looked back towards the apartment and gestured at the packed living room. "You think any of them loved her? You think any of them even _knew_ her? G-d." He snorted. "You Slayers can be real pieces of work, you know that? She is - _was_ \- the only one who made sense. She was - "

The Slayer cut him off. "She loved you. I knew Faith for years. She was never that way around anyone but you. Not me, not Angel, not anybody. She loved you. And you loved her. We all saw it. So you can quit with the denials."

Saying nothing, Dean turned his gaze once again to the street.

Buffy lashed out with the back of her hand, catching him hard on the bicep. Not hard enough to hurt, but hard enough to demand his attention. "She's _dead,_ Dean," she repeated, tears welling at the brim of her lower eyelids. "So for God's sakes, be man enough to stop denying the truth."

A throat cleared behind them. "Am I interrupting something?"

Dean swiveled on his heel. It was Angel, brandishing Spike's hip flask. He easily edged his way between the hunter and the Slayer, pressing the alcohol into the man's hand.

"No." Tossing her head, Buffy retreated from the balcony railing. "We weren't talking about anything. Take care of yourself, Dean." With that parting salvo, she returned to the apartment.

"Becka says just another twenty minutes, and then you should be good to leave. There's a red-eye from LAX to Lincoln. Lily's already booked the tickets. She says you can rent a car there, and it should get you back to Grand Island."

"Ah." Dean took a long, deep pull of the whiskey. The liquid washed over his tongue like an old friend. It was all coming together now. "So you're playing for their team tonight."

Angel rested his elbows on the edge of the iron railing and leaned out into the night. "Wouldn't quite say that. Thought you could use some air, that's all."

"Thanks." Ducking his head, the hunter drank deep from the flask. He had never thought he'd look forward to a flight, but already he was counting down the seconds until he was back on a plane, headed for his baby. That reunion could not come soon enough.

Feeling like he owed Angel for rescuing him from Buffy, he attempted to continue the conversation. "So, you come to these things often?" the hunter said lamely.

The vampire chuckled darkly. "You don't have to . . . Look, I know you've never liked me much. And that's fine. End of the day, I'm not doing this for you. Or for me. I'm doing it for her."

"Fair enough." In a way, it was a relief, not having to pretend. Dean inhaled deeply, then took another sip at the whiskey. He held the flask up towards the night sky, too obscured with smog and city lights for any stars to be visible. "To her."

Angel tilted his head to the side, regarding the hunter strangely. "To Faith," he said, the words almost a correction.

"Yeah." Dean drank again. "Like I said, to her."


	2. Montana Dreamin'

 

* * *

**April 13th, 2027, Missoula, Montana, 7:30 p.m.**

The front door slammed closed, and Faith stomped her way into the kitchen. She dropped her beat-up workout bag onto the tile floor as she was rushed by Reggie. She scratched the German Shepherd between his ears, breathing in deeply though her nose. "My God, what is that smell? Is that . . . Did you . . .?"

Dean looked up from the kitchen table where he was balancing the accounts for the garage in a faded red ledger. "Chicken parm," he answered her unspoken question. "Got off early, figured you'd be hungry after you finished with class."

"Yeah." As Faith continued to scratch Reggie, her arms lifted to show a pair of giant sweat stains beneath her armpits. "The kids felt like mutiny today. No one wanted to work, no one wanted to run, so I had to work them extra hard." She gestured towards the oven. "What time?"

The man glanced at the clock on the microwave. "Fifteen? Twenty? Something like that."

"Cool." Faith gave the dog one final pat on the head, smiling at him absently. "I'm gonna hit the shower."

Stretching, Dean closed his account book. He crossed the floor to the fridge and pulled out the broccoli in preparation for steaming. The stairs in the old house creaked in protest as the Slayer tackled them two at a time. Dean smiled to himself. Some things, at least, never changed.

Faith came charging back down the stairs fifteen minutes later, having traded her sweat-stained workout gear for jeans and an old University of Montana t-shirt that Sam had gotten her a few years ago. Her wet hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and she had scrubbed the makeup off of her face. In the fluorescent light of the kitchen, she looked younger than her forty-six years.

"You're a hero, Dean Winchester," she said, sliding onto one of the barstools at the kitchen table. Faith stared down at the plate awaiting her: a sizable portion of steamed broccoli, a twisting pile of spaghetti, and the glorious chicken parmesan itself.

"Here." He passed her half of a key lime, then perched on the barstool across from her. "Go to town."

The Slayer squeezed a fine line of lime juice over her broccoli and ripped into her meal. The two ate steadily without speaking until Faith's plate was almost empty, when she finally surfaced for air. "You sure you shouldn't be the one working at the diner?" she joked, pausing with a piece of broccoli stabbed on her fork.

"Ha, please," Dean scoffed, mid-bite. A wad of half-chewed chicken and spaghetti bulged against the inside of his cheek. "I'll take my cars over your whiny-ass waitstaff any day."

"Fair enough." Faith reached for her glass of water and took a quick sip. "So Caro called me on my drive home."

He raised an eyebrow at the mention of his sister-in-law. "Everything okay with her and Sam?"

"They're fine," she hurried to reassure him. "Caroline was just wondering if I could pick up Livvy and Rachel from school tomorrow and take them to the doctor, since it's my afternoon off. She got asked to work a twelve at the hospital last minute, and Sam's last class doesn't wrap up until five. I thought I'd take the girls and Reg to the park after, if you want to join."

Considering, the hunter tilted his head to one side. "What time's the doctor?"

Faith fished out her cell phone to check through her text messages. "Livvy's at one, and Rach is at one-fifteen. Accounting for the doctor running late, I figure we'll be out by two."

"Huh." Dean thought, running through the next day in his mind. There was that new cruiser that Sheriff Simmons wanted back in commission, not to mention the old Pontiac that he needed to start rebuilding. "Tomorrow's gonna be long, but I can probably take a late lunch and meet you for a bit."

"Post-doctor ice cream cones?" the Slayer guessed. It was kind of his tradition with his nieces, and she rarely saw them as excited as when it came time for a trip to the ice cream parlor with Uncle Dean.

"You got it," he confirmed with a smile.

Faith speared her last bit of broccoli. "All dessert and no vegetables. No wonder those girls love you so much."

The hunter's smile broadened into a wide grin. "Can you blame them?"

"Very funny." The woman hopped off of her stool and rinsed her dishes in the sink. As she slid her plate into the dishwasher, she said over her shoulder, "Speaking of loving things . . ."

"Your Mr. Perfect finally wander into the diner from off the street?"

Rolling her eyes dramatically, Faith knelt beside her gym bag and began rummaging through it. "Not quite." Her hands closed around a stack of DVDs, and she pulled them out. "Marge at the diner was cleaning out her daughter's bedroom, now that Frankie's gotten herself off to college. Thought you might want these." She set the stack on the table in front of Dean.

His eyes widened as he took in the title along the spines. " _Doctor_   _Sexy_? Is this . . . Is this  _all_  of Doctor Sexy, MD?"

The Slayer clapped him on the shoulder. "Happy Birthday, Kansas."

Dean continued running his fingers over the DVD cases. "It's May," he pointed out, his gaze locked on the glistening pearly whites of Dr. Sexy's gleaming smile.

Shrugging, Faith said, "Well, I thought about holding onto it until January, but you know me. Patience isn't exactly my middle name." As she realized that all dinner conversation was now effectively derailed, the Slayer added, "So . . . should we start with the pilot?"

Without looking up, the hunter nodded furiously. "Yes."

Decision made, they worked together to quickly clean up the dishes and put away the leftovers. Once the kitchen had been restored to its usual state of hygiene, Faith and Dean retired to the living room. While the Slayer stepped into the mudroom to dump a cupful of dog food into Reggie's bowl, Dean cued up the first season of Doctor Sexy, MD. Longnecks in hand, they then claimed their habitual seats at either end of the comfortable leather couch. The couch, along with the large flat-screen TV, was one of the few luxuries in the otherwise shabby house.

"One episode," said Faith warningly, unscrewing the cap from her beer. She kicked her bare feet up onto the tooth-marked coffee table.

Dean pulled two blankets out of the wicker basket near his end of the couch and tossed one over to her. "Two," he bargained.

" _One_ ," repeated the Slayer, even more firmly this time, as she shook the blanket out to cover her legs.

"Fine," he accepted the inevitable. "We can do one tonight. And then one tomorrow?"

In response, Faith fished one of Reggie's half-mauled tennis balls from between the cushion and the arm of the couch and threw it at Dean's chest.

Snickering, the hunter blocked the tennis ball with the back of his forearm. "Missed me."

"You never quit, do you?" the Slayer grumbled. She searched for another tennis ball, but came up empty-handed.

"Shhh." Dean clicked 'play' on the TV remote. "It's time for Doctor Sexy."

Despite her initial protestations, an hour and a half (and two episodes) passed before Faith finally detangled herself from underneath the slumbering German Shepherd and rose from the couch. She stepped into the kitchen to rinse out her beer bottle, and then dropped it into the recycling can near the end of the counter. Passing back through the living room on her way to the stairs, Faith stopped to whistle for the dog. "Come on, Reg. Time for bed."

"Already? It's not even ten."

As she walked past Dean's end of the couch, the Slayer reached out and ruffled his hair. "And I've got work at eight. You wanna run in the morning?"

Dean caught her wrist and pushed her away. He might have settled down and started eating vegetables on a regular basis, but he was in no way crazy enough to join her, Caro, and Sam in their ridiculous passion for early morning exercise. "In your dreams, psycho. In your dreams."

* * *

In the end, however, it was  _his_  dreams that caused a problem. Dean startled awake a hair after two, his heart racing. Cold sweat dripped down the back of his neck. He lingered in the darkness, struggling with himself and breathing deeply in an attempt to slow his heart, before giving in to his panic.

Leaving his bed, the hunter padded quietly across his floor and down the upstairs hallway to Faith's bedroom. After knocking twice, he entered. The Slayer was fast asleep, lying diagonally across her queen-sized bed with Reggie taking up the bottom third of the bed.

"Hey." Dean took two steps further into the room. "Hey, wake up." When she did not move, he flickered the lights on and off a handful of times in their prearranged signal to prevent someone from earning themselves a knife or a gunshot wound to the gut. "Faith. Wake up."

Without opening her eyes, the woman yanked a dagger from beneath her pillow and hurled it at his head. Dean dodged to the side, and the knife imbedded itself in the wall, a foot above the light-switch and two inches to the left from where his shoulder had been seconds previously.

"You missed. Again."

Eyelids still scrunched shut, Faith groaned. "Hit the lights."

Flicking the lights off, Dean plunged the room back into darkness.

"You have another dream?"

"Yeah."

The Slayer straightened herself out in the bed, nudging the German Shepherd over to the far side and making space for Dean. She held up the edge of the comforter with her right arm. "What're you waiting for?"

Dean joined her beneath the covers, scooting over until their shoulders bumped. Closing his eyes, he listened to the regular sound of her breathing. "Thanks," he said after a long minute.

Faith's hand reached for his, and she tightened her fingers around the bones of his hand. "Who died this time?"

This was the cost of coming to her. He had to actually answer her questions. The hunter exhaled. "You."

Rolling onto her side, the Slayer stared at him in the darkness. She did not relinquish her hold where their fingers were linked together. "I'm not dead, you idiot," she said gently. "And I'm not dying, either. But if I did . . ."

Dean recognized this thread of an old conversation, rehashed many times over endless long drives. "No foolhardy Winchester heroics," he finished the sentence for her. "I'd let you go. And you'd do the same for me."

"Exactly." Leaning down, she kissed him once lightly on the lips and then turned over onto her back. The Slayer fluffed her pillow a little and wriggled to find the most comfortable position, sandwiched between the man and the dog. In an even softer voice, she said, "It's okay, Dean. I'm right here. And I promise, I'm not going anywhere."

"I'll be fine in the morning," Dean grumbled from behind his closed eyelids. He hated nights like this. Even if Faith sought him out nearly as often as he sought her, he still hated that sometimes he was no braver than a little kid, seeking reassurance that the nightmare had not been real.

"I know." She gripped his hand tighter. "I'm still here."

And, listening to the soft in-and-out, in-and-out of her breathing and the muffled whuffing of Reggie as the dog's paws twitched in some doggie-dreamland, Dean finally allowed himself to relax enough to follow the darkness down into sleep.

* * *

**April 13th, 2015, Bridgeport, Connecticut, 6:45 a.m.**

The rumbling of train tracks outside his window pulled him back to reality, like a rubber band snapping into its original position. Dean turned onto his side to find the mattress next to him empty. In the other bed, the gargantuan form of his younger brother was snoring.

Right on cue, the wave of frozen loneliness crashed into him. For a half-second, Dean had to remind himself of the proper way to breathe. She wasn't there. She had never been there. It was only another dream.

The hunter rolled out of bed and reached for the half-empty pint of Jack on the nightstand. He downed a large swallow, wincing at the burn in the back of his throat. After shoving his cell phone into his jeans pocket, he retreated into the bathroom.

The door safely locked behind him, Dean sat on the closed toilet lid. He scrolled through his recently dialed numbers until he found the one he was looking for.

"Hey. This's Faith. You know what to do."

He listened to the voicemail message another two or three times before he set the phone on the counter and stepped into the shower. Dreams were fine and all, but now he was awake. Time to get moving.


	3. Whispers in the Dark

 

* * *

To Dean's silent relief, after the first couple of weeks, Sam seemed to have finally learned to keep his damn mouth shut. He stopped asking the pointless questions that his brother refused to answer. He didn't need to answer them. There was, after all, nothing to say. He was fine.

Sure, maybe he made late night and early morning calls to a dead-end number, but that was fine. He was fine. Whatever he said - or didn't say - in those frozen minutes between the dial tones, well that was between him and the dead woman on the other end of the line. He took care not to clog the thing, only leaving messages once every two to three weeks or so. Still, those calls were his business, not Sam's.

Unfortunately, while his little brother might have learned to master his big fat mouth, he had yet to gain control over his eyes. For the first month after the Slayer's death, Dean left her silver and turquoise cross dangling from the rearview mirror of the Impala. It was nice to see it swinging there out of the corner of his eyes, a quiet reminder of the thing that had once been his.

Sometimes he even reached out to touch it, his fingertips skating over the smooth surface with its minuscule pockmarks from colliding with every weapon and monster known to mankind. The touching started out sporadic. Just once after a case or on the way to a fight or after a long few days in the Bunker. But then it became more and more frequent, until he was doing it habitually, almost every time he got into or out of his car.

Dean hardly noticed - it was more subconscious than anything - until a pointedly cleared throat and a suspicious pair of eyebrows from Sam let him know that he had been caught.

He'd had to move the necklace after that. For a spit second, he considered wearing it under his t-shirt, but the cross, while not girly - she had never been girly - was still too dang feminine. Instead, he tucked it into the back of his wallet where he could keep it close and  _remember_.

Because with the way Dean's year was going, remembering was about the only good thing he had at the moment. Sam had embraced the idea of himself as the completer of the Trials with the expansive enthusiasm and self-sacrifice of a final-round auditionee for Gibson's Passion of the Christ. The further they went along that road, the worse his health became, and the more Dean had to step up to take care of his brother. They lost Benny not too long after that, when Sam made his big push to cross off the second Trial.

The whole time, he could practically hear her voice in his head - taunting, teasing, ridiculing. He knew it wasn't real, knew it was just his imagination, but sometimes Dean caught himself almost wishing that it was her after all. That was dumb - he knew it was dumb - and yet he couldn't help himself.

There were nights when everything just felt a little too much and he couldn't watch his baby brother cough up another cup of blood. On those nights, Dean would drift off back into his room, lock the door behind him, and pull out the necklace. He wound the chain around his hand, wrapping it tighter and tighter until faint red lines appeared branded on his skin. Then he stopped.

Dean never cut himself, never let it bleed. The last thing he needed was for Sam to catch wind of his newest habit. Given the way his brother kept watching him, all wide-eyed with concern, if Dean so much as broke his skin, Sam would jump down his throat with aggressive abandon.

In April, he began noticing other things. Dean didn't make too much out of them - he was too busy worrying about Sam, worrying about Cass, worrying about Kevin. If he hadn't been so preoccupied, he might have noticed them more.

The first odd thing happened when the A/C in the Impala went on the fritz for a few days. Without rhyme or reason, the air starting blowing cold when Dean wanted hot and hot when he wanted cold. The hunter was reluctantly acknowledging that he might have to take his baby in for a checkup when the car magically fixed itself and the air started blowing cool again.

His stereo was the next to act up. One week, every other radio station played Kansas' Dust in the Wind, no matter how many times Dean fiddled with the dials. The week after that, his favorite Led Zeppelin tape disappeared for five days straight, only to reappear in the same cup holder where Sam had already looked a dozen times.

And then there was the afternoon when he paid Kevin a little visit and forgot a six-pack of beer in the car along with his wallet. It spent seven hours languishing in the stuffy interior of his green cooler before Dean remembered. Although the Impala was baking away under the warm spring sun, the beer itself remained ice cold.

One night, hunting a pair of werewolves in the Wasatch Mountains with Sam, he found himself upwind of his quarry, a nasty fellow who was rumored to have caught rabies. The werewolf was faintly visible in the moonlight, standing stock-still twenty yards further up the ridge. Dean watched the wolf as it turned its head in his direction, its snout uptilted towards the sky.

Miraculously, the wind changed. The beast lowered its head, and Dean was able to creep forward until he was close enough to put a silver bullet through the monster's thick skull.

As the wind switched tack a second time, Dean almost fancied that he could hear a voice. No actual words were spoken, just a low mumble in a familiar, skeptical tone. As soon as the thought passed through his head, the hunter disregarded it. He was always half-wondering if he could hear her. He'd been wondering that ever since - well, for quite a while now.

As usual, however, he chalked it up to wishful thinking.  _What's dead should stay dead_ , he reminded himself forcefully. Besides, surely out of everyone he knew, she deserved a little peace.

* * *

**May 1, 2015, El Reno, Oklahoma, 9:27 p.m.**

This ought to have been an easy hunt. Dean was out somewhere east of OK City, tracking down a nest of vampires. They were his kind, the real kind, not the dust-exploding knockoff version. A group of three or four, judging by the size of the bloodbath that the fangs had been leaving in their wake. Enough to provide a challenge, but not too many for him to take on on his own. A new consideration for Dean these days, now that his brother was singlehandedly fighting off the tuberculosis from Hell.

The beginning of the hunt went according to plan. Dean tracked the three vamps back to their nest, machete in hand. Then he strode in and set to work, decapitating the fangs with an enthusiasm that surprised even him.

Everything was working out just fine. Except after he slew the third vampire, four more emerged from the desolate hallways of the collapsing hovel. Turns out, there were seven fangs after all, not three. He couldn't take out another four vampires on his own, not when two of them rushed him from behind, catching him by the shoulders and knocking him to the ground. His machete tumbled loose from his hand, the steel clanging against the concrete. Two of the vamps restrained his shoulders while a third held his legs.

The tallest of the four, a heavyset man with thinning sandy hair and a solid beer-gut, tossed the usual combination of insults Dean's way. The hunter said nothing. In some ways, accepting his own impending demise in the face of overwhelming odds was something of a relief.

Growing irritated, the vampire snarled, revealing its jagged fangs. It leaned in for the kill.

_Swish. Thunk. Swish. Thunk._  Dean's machete rose from the ground on its own, spinning through the air to easily slice through the necks of the two fangs currently pinning the hunter's shoulders to the cement.  _Swish. Thunk._  There went the one holding his legs.

Snarling, the fourth vampire leapt to his feet, turning to face his invisible assailant. As he did so, a faint figure flickered into view over the creature's shoulder. Dean blinked his eyes hazily.

The figure reached forwards with its free hand, its fingers sliding through the vampire's rib cage as though the ribs and muscle were butter. The vampire screamed as the spectral hand tightened once around some internal organ, and then the machete came whistling to separate the vampire's head from its body. As the corpse crumpled to the earth, Dean stared up at his erstwhile savior.

He knew that face. Even coated in a thick layer of goopy green slime, even with her hair wild and tangled, dropping grass and leaves and twigs onto her shoulders, Dean knew that face. Her eyes were narrowed and distant, and when they finally locked on his, all he saw in their dark depths was cold.

"Faith?" The name was ripped, guttural, from his throat, the first time he had spoken it since her death.

Dropping the machete, the transparent form of the woman took a slow step backwards. Already, her outline seemed faint, almost on the brink of disappearing.

Everything clicked into place, like a dislocated joint sliding back into its socket. Dean laughed, a frenzied half-sob of a sound born out of hysteria. "Faith?" he repeated her name and scrambled to his feet. "What the hell are you doing here?"

The woman opened her mouth to speak, but as she did so, the wind swept up behind her. Her outline wavered, then flickered, and then finally was gone.

* * *

**May 1, 2015, El Reno, Oklahoma, 10:25 p.m.**

_What the hell . . . what the hell . . ._  This was . . . This was not the way things were supposed to happen. Frankly, none of this was the way things were supposed to happen.

Splattered with vampire gunk, Dean limped his way back to the Impala. He eased himself into the front seat and winced as his shoulder banged against the leather upholstery. The hunter did not bother sliding his keys into the ignition. Instead, he tugged his wallet out of his pocket and flipped through the crumpled bills, worn credit cards, and dog-eared business cards until his fingers closed around a thin silver chain. Dean held the cross a few inches away from his face, the chain dangling from his tight grip.

He stared at the necklace with a faint sense of betrayal. First Bobby's flask, and now this. He really ought to have learned by now - try as you might, the only things you could hold onto were memories. Frowning, the hunter slipped the cross back over his rearview mirror. He touched the blue-green stone in the center for a half-second, then coaxed his baby from a partial rumble to a full-on roar.

As he drove, Dean could not stop his thoughts from racing. She was back. She was  _back_. But he could not allow her to stay that way. It would end as it had ended with Bobby - the only way that these things could ever end. No ghost was benign, no matter how well-intentioned they were at the start. It always ended in ruin.

The hunter glanced at his rearview mirror and the cross, which gently twirled from side to side with the motion of the Impala. In some ways, he guessed, this ought to be a relief. If she was following him around, if her focus was the necklace, then at least he would not have to track down her corpse and start over from the beginning. Not that tracking down her remains would have been an option. He vaguely recalled Sam mentioning something about Buffy taking the urn back to San Francisco and scattering her ashes over the bay.

Still, it was easier to know that all he would have to do was destroy the cross. He thought fleetingly of the workroom back in the bunker and the Bunsen burner that he had used to make silver bullets only three days before. He'd need to turn the temp up a little higher, but if it could melt the bullets, it could melt the cross.

Then, and only then, he could lay her to rest once and for all.

* * *

Dean waited for the dead of night, waited until Sam was fast asleep, before he padded quietly along the halls to the old workshop. He flipped the light switch to illuminate the large ten- by twenty-foot room. Heavy cabinets with large steel countertops ran along the walls, and a heavy worktable of yellow pine stood in the center of floor.

The hunter calmly set out his equipment, trying not to think too hard about what he was going to do. Ghosts couldn't read thoughts, but if anyone was going to break that mold, it would be her. She'd always had a knack for being obnoxious that way.

Once he had his flame set up, Dean jerked a bar stool over to the worktable. Dropping his weight onto it, he reached for the nearly empty bottle of Jack that he had brought to accompany him. The hunter took a long swig. Might as well have a little fun while he was doing this.

After ten minutes, Dean held a single silver bullet over the fire, clasped carefully in a pair of tongs. The round softened but did not give way. Dean let the bullet fall into the small long-handled iron pan that he would use later to melt the cross. Replacing the tongs onto the table, he stretched out his hand for the bottle of whiskey and polished it off.

When the last swallow had drained away down his throat, the hunter fished the cross out of his wallet and dangled it tauntingly over the flame.

"Come out, come out, wherever you are." He needed to see her, needed to watch her fade as the cross collapsed into a pool of motel metal. He needed to be sure that this worked.

The temperature of the room plummeted ten degrees, and the flame of the Bunsen burner whipped from side to side as she appeared across the table from him. Her pale arms were folded over her chest. As before, her face and hair were streaked with ghastly green slime. She frowned but did not speak.

"What the hell are you doing here?" He repeated his earlier question, the cross sliding through his fingers onto the table top.

The ghost's frown deepened, but she remained silent.

Dean lost his temper. He wouldn't - he couldn't - "You're supposed to be dead!" he yelled, content in the knowledge that his brother was sleeping soundly one floor and fifteen doors away. He rose from his stool.

Slamming his hands down onto the table, he leaned toward her. "You don't get to stay here," he snarled. "You move on. You go to Heaven. You don't get to stick around here and - and ruin things. You don't get to ruin her. So you just find whatever light in the sky or hole in the ground that's calling your name, and you get the hell out of here."

She shifted from one mostly transparent motorcycle boot to the other, pursing her lips. Her eyebrows furrowed in either confusion or frustration. Dean had zero interest in discerning which.

His fist closed over the necklace again, and he jerked it upwards, so that the cross hovered two inches above the Bunsen burner. Screw the heating pan. Screw safety. "What? You ain't got nothin'? Oh, sure, you can pop the heads off a handful of vamps, but you can't use your damn words? Say something."

Dean lowered the cross an inch, and the ghost's eyes widened. She strode into the table and stopped, the wooden edge slicing neatly through her midriff. Under other circumstances, Dean might have laughed at the ghost's predicament. As it was, his fingers only tightened in the quickly warming silver chain.

"Say something!" he half-commanded, half-begged.

Frown deepening, the ghost opened its mouth. "I . . . can't."

"You just did, damn you."

The ghost tried again. "Words . . . are . . . hard. Moving . . . easier. Helped when . . . you were . . . in danger."

Dean dropped the cross another half-inch closer to the flames as the ghost edged backwards so that she was no longer being split in half by the table. "I don't need no guardian angel, okay? I already got Cass. You need to get your ass out of here before you go Dark Side. You got two options, you hear me? Either you step on into the light or I send you there, tout suite. Your choice."

"I can't," said the ghost a second time. She tilted her head to the side. "Someone . . has to . . . watch . . . your back."

"Cass -" Dean started angrily.

The temperature in the room dropped even further, effectively silencing him. Her eyes darkening, the ghost pointed to the necklace. "Put that . . . damn thing . . . down."

"Or what? Or you'll knock it out of my hand? Slam me against the wall? Possess me? That's where you're headed. You don't clear out now, and that's where this road ends."

"Stop." The ghost opened her fingers, and a burst of wind blew out the flame of Dean's Bunsen burner. Another gust of air caught the pendant and yanked it out of Dean's hand. It hovered above the table momentarily and then flew into the ghost's outstretched palm.

"Castiel . . . is not enough." The more she talked, the less halting her speech became. "Castiel is not enough," she repeated herself. "But that . . . that's not why. There is no light, Dean. No gaping hole in the ground. Just mist." She waved her free hand dismissively. "I'm . . . I'm stuck. There's nothing. Can't see, can't hear, can't do much of anything . . . And then sometimes . . . I'm here." She gestured at the space around them.

"Look, you need to stop being here," he said forcefully, not listening to a word that she had just said. "You don't find the light, I'm gonna have to -"

"Gimme some time," cajoled the ghost. "Maybe . . . I dunno. Maybe there's a reason I'm trapped. Can I try . . . Can I try to get out of this? For a month or two?" Her words picked up speed. "And if that . . . if that doesn't work, you can blast my ass wherever it is you want to send me. Just, for today, could you please stop pulling a Dorothy and quit trying to melt me? I'm not the frigging Wicked Witch of the West, Dean. I'm . . . I'm still me. And I'm stuck."

"No," he said in an emotionless voice, yanking the cord to the Bunsen burner out of its socket and flicking off the gas. "You're not. You're not her. You're . . . You're something else."

The ghost's jaw tightened. "I did not give you this much sh-t when you got turned into a vampire," she pointed out.

"That was different!"

She flinched, and Dean almost felt sorry. Not quite, but almost. "Fine," he snapped through clenched teeth. "You get two months. But I don't want to see you around here, you understand? Now go. Get out. And leave the damn cross."

Just like that, she left. The necklace tumbled onto the wooden surface of the work table, and the room suddenly felt sweltering as the temperature zoomed back up to seventy degrees.

Dean exhaled. Although the thing was gone, he had a sinking feeling that this wasn't the end, not by a long shot. She did not play by the rules - she never had.

Leaning forward, he lifted the cross off of the table. He wrapped the chain around his hand as he eyed first it and then the extinguished gun-smithing equipment carefully. He could still . . . if he moved fast, he could cut this off at the knees before it went any further. Send her off to the Great Hereafter before things got any worse.

The hunter hesitated. He had never lied to her, never broken a promise to her - at least not intentionally. And even if this wasn't completely the Slayer, he didn't think that he could start breaking promises now. Two months. He could wait this out two months. And then he would act.

* * *

The months flew past, racing by so quickly that Dean did not have time to remember his own ultimatum. He was too busy stopping his brother from killing himself with the Trials; finding a way to keep Sam alive; babysitting Kevin; tracking down Cass; keeping Crowley securely locked up in the dungeon downstairs; working a fourth time with Charlie Bradbury; and struggling to convince Ezekiel to get his glowing ass the hell out of Sam to think too much about the ghost in his wallet.

Luckily, the ghost kept herself to herself, never manifesting when anyone else was around. There were moments when he suspected her interference - conveniently timed breezes that blew tree branches into the faces of his opponents; monsters tripping over invisible obstacles; the plummeting temperature in the bunker when the Wicked Witch had attacked. But those moments remained nothing more than that - simply suspicions.

After their first little tete-a-tete, she stayed away until Randolph, when Dean found himself alone in that hospital chapel, staring blankly at the pew in front of him. He had been sitting in the chapel for fifteen minutes, wrestling with decision before him. Castiel . . . Castiel was not answering his prayers, and Dean was beginning to run out of options. Still struggling inside himself, the hunter watched as the ghost flickered into view out of the corner of his eye.

"What took you so damn long?" he snarled, his fingers tensing on the silver chain locked tight as a noose around the palm of his hand. "Sam's dying."

Since their initial encounter, the ghost had never spoken. Nor did she do so now. She simply scooted a few inches closer along the wooden pew until a line of ice collided with Dean's side. The hunter froze in place as she reached out, taking his hand in hers and slowly unwrapping the cross from between his fingers. As soon as she had finished, she dropped the necklace onto his leg, and then sat there beside him in silence.

Dean picked up the pendant, clenching it in his grip. He had made his decision. Clasping his hands, the hunter bent his head. "To any angel out there with your ears on. This is Dean Winchester . . . and I need your help. The deal is this - Linwood Memorial Hospital, Randolph, New York. The first one who can help me gets my help in return . . . and you know that ain't nothin'. Hell, it's no secret that we haven't always seen eye to eye, but you know that I am good for my word. And, uh, I wouldn't be askin' if I wasn't needin', so . . ." His voice trailed away.

Opening his eyes, he stared down at his lap, where the gleaming tip of the cross protruded from between his interlocked fingers. A single tear spilled out of the corner of his left eye and dropped onto his wrist.

The ghost reached out a second time, her icy touch trailing along the skin of his arm from shoulder to elbow. When she got to his clasped hands, she squeezed until Dean winced in pain. There came a soft noise, almost a hum, before she vanished and was gone.

* * *

Dean did not see her again for the rest of the summer. Oh, he had a feeling she was there - his radio still played odd songs unexpectedly from time to time, and his room became untenably cold when he watched HBO some nights - but always she made it easy to ignore her. Sometimes he wondered if Ezekiel had caught on, but he spoke so infrequently with the angel that he had no trouble avoiding the subject.

Summer passed, and Dean did nothing about the turquoise cross quietly burning a hole in his wallet. He let it be, let  _her_  be, trying his best to forget that she even existed as two months turned to four, and then four months turned to six.

He pushed everything away until the very tail end of fall, when the fires that he had been struggling to contain for months all exploded at the same time in a burning conflagration that sent everything -  _everything_  - straight to Hell.

* * *

**November 13th, 2015, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 11:30 p.m.**

He made it an hour down the highway before he had to pull over into a crummy motel on the outskirts of Pittsburgh. His hands were shaking, his throat dry like the dessert. Everything . . . everything had blown up in his face, and now even the walls of his familiar car were closing in on him.

Cass . . . powerless. Crowley . . . loose. Kevin . . . dead. Gadreel . . . in the wind. Sam . . . in some ways Sam was more lost to him that he had been before Crowley convinced him to cast the fallen angel out of his body.

Moving stiffly, he stepped into the motel office and booked himself the cheapest room that they had. It didn't matter which one. He just needed to find a stationary place long enough to drink himself to sleep.

Dean locked the motel room door behind him, but he did not bother with any protection or warding. Anything that wanted to kill him tonight was welcome to take the opportunity. Collapsing into the sole wooden chair, the hunter fumbled in his duffel for whatever he could find. Alcohol, benzos, other downers - he'd take any or all of them.

To his chagrin, all he had tonight was a pint of cheap vodka. His fingers closing around the neck of the bottle, Dean grimaced. It wasn't the best, but it would do. He drank steadily as the clock edged past midnight and his thoughts drifted inexorably towards her.

Where was she? The last four days had been an utter sh-tstorm, and she had not shown up once. Not a single inexplicable gust of wind, no dark figures at the corner of his vision. Nothing.

No sooner had that thought passed through his half-drunken mind than it began to give way to resentment. Dean shoved his hands into his pockets, withdrawing first his wallet and then his Zippo. He pulled out the silver cross and flicked the lighter beneath it. Instantly, the cheap fluorescent lights overhead began flickering in and out. The temperature in the room plummeted about fifteen degrees, and then she was there.

Dean opened his mouth to tell the thing that was masquerading as his dead best friend to piss off, but something else came out instead. "Why didn't you turn up earlier?" His voice was remarkably steady for someone nearing the end of a pint of vodka.

"I don't know." The spirit leaned against the opposite wall beside the broken television set, her hands tightening into fists at her sides. "I don't have total control over it. I just get a weird sort of feeling, and then I'm here. Wherever here is," she added, glancing around at the impersonal motel room furnishings.

"Pittsburgh," Dean supplied shortly, clicking off the Zippo and returning it to his pocket.

"Haven't been to Pennsylvania in a while," observed the ghost of the Slayer. Her eyes met his. "What's going on, Dean?"

He hated it when she said his name. Hated it with the sort of gut-burning feeling that he used to reserve for the bitchiest of his brother's bitch faces. But as much as he hated it, he couldn't quite find it in him to ask her to stop.

"You see what happened to Kevin?"

She nodded. "Like I said, I don't always control things. And . . . and I can't always get through when I want to. But, yeah, I've been keeping an eye out. I know about Kevin. That's . . . that's maybe the last thing I saw, though. You burning the body."

The hunter cleared his throat. "Sam found out. About Gadreel. He doesn't understand why I did it."

"Why did you do it?" asked the ghost curiously.

Dean looked away. He couldn't believe the creature was making him explain this - to her, of all people. "You know why. I just couldn't lose anybody else. And I couldn't lose him. I – I need him."

"Did you tell Sam that?"

He shook his head. "I tried to. Don't think he listened. I said I was gonna go, and he said I should. I . . . I don't think I'm ever gonna be able to fix this one." Hands trembling, he reached for the bottle of vodka only to realize that it was empty.

The ghost surveyed him impassively for a long moment. Finally, she said, "What do you want from me, Dean? There's gotta be something. Or else you wouldn't've called."

The man swallowed, his prominent Adam's apple bobbing up and down against the skin of his throat. He blinked once, and then stared directly into those brown eyes that were somehow just not right. Their gaze always appeared to be focused a little too far away.

"Make me feel something," he said quietly. "I don't care what. Anything - anything is better than this."

Accepting the invitation, she closed the distance between them in the space of half a second. Dean shut his eyes reflexively. He couldn't watch this. Freezing cold brushed against his thighs as the ghost straddled him. Her icy fingertips brushed gently at the hairline on either side of his face. The hunter shivered.

When she had first come back, the first time she had shown up, the cold was simply too much. It had burned and cut and had him longing to turn the heater on in the middle of May. Now, he was used to it. It still hurt, but it was a different kind of hurt - an inside-him kind of hurt.

"Poor Dean." The whisper was a frigid breath of air against his ear. The ghost traced the outline of his cheekbones one at a time, first the right, and then the left. "Poor, poor Dean."

"Stop talking," growled the hunter.

And then there was nothing. Nothing but the freezing, burning chill as the ghost pressed herself against him from hips to shoulders, the glacial touch of her arms winding about his neck, those biting fingers working their way through his short hair. If he wished hard enough, he could almost feel the faintest pressure of lips against his.

Dean allowed the ice to fill him, working its way in from his skin through gut and muscle until it reached his aching heart. He scrunched his eyes tighter as the darkness and her cold consumed him, until there was nothing inside left to ache at all.


	4. Marked

 

* * *

In the end, dying had been the easy part. You just relaxed and stopped fighting the inevitable. All dying really took was laying your burdens down.

Not that any of this had come as a surprise to Faith. She'd been half-listening to the whispered call of sweet oblivion for years. Long before her magical mystery tour inside Angel's memories; long before her blood-stained fall from that balcony in Sunnydale; long before she was branded with a tattoo that had linked her with that cloven-hoofed Kakistos, Faith had carried with her a subconscious longing for freedom, for escape, for something -  _anything_  - else, even if that something else resulted in her death.

It was what happened after the dying that was starting to become a giant pain in the neck. For some damn reason, she was caught in a steely web of cold gray nothing, an intangible blob unable to fight or touch or feel. The only highlights to this interminable afterlife occurred when she woke up enough to be drawn back towards the technicolor cacophony of the living.

At first, that happened only when the godforsaken necklace she was attached to was in physical peril - or when the carrier of the necklace was in physical peril. Faith should have known - if she was going to come back attached to something or someone, it would have been him. And at least it was preferable to being attached to, say, Buffy. That would have been far too Ghost Whisperer even for her.

As time passed, the Slayer grew stronger - and more bored. Soon, she was silently manifesting more and more frequently. She stood invisible in the corner of Dean's room whenever Game of Thrones came on, quietly grateful that Doctor Sexy, MD, was now off the air because it meant that the hunter's television picks had soared in quality.

She wandered through the hallways, dodging Sam and Cass and Kevin and Gadreel, always avoiding the isolated dungeon where Crowley sat in bespelled chains. She could not articulate quite why she strove so diligently to not be noticed, other than the vague feeling she had that discovery would end poorly. Dean tolerated her presence in minimal doses. The others would not be so forgiving.

Ultimately, perhaps, Faith was afraid. She hated this mind-numbing existence that surrounded her, but Hell would be far worse. And she knew without thinking that there was no way her tarnished soul could ever be polished up enough to be shiny and clean for Heaven. Too bad she couldn't find her way into Purgatory, the Slayer thought grimly. It had sounded just like her kind of place – and Benny was there.

Today, at this particular moment in time (keeping track of a calendar became rather tricky when you were nothing more than a pissed-off collection of memories), Faith was lost in the mist, contemplating for the thousandth time how bad Hell could really be, and wouldn't torture at least be more entertaining than this endless inability to touch anything?

It was a debate she revisited nearly every time she was focused enough for conscious thought. But now, the thing catching her attention was a familiar warning from the fragment of her being most closely tethered to that stupid cross.  _Danger_.

Faith frowned. What was Winchester up to now? He had successfully kept himself out of trouble for the last little while, ever since that dust-up with Sam over Gadreel . . .

Her frown deepened.  _Gadreel_. When she got her spectral hands on that feathered piece of crap . . . Faith was not sure, even now, if she had agreed with Dean's plan to save his brother. But it was a little hypocritical to criticize others when your entire existence centered on a damn piece of tourist jewelry. So she resisted her urge to be a backseat driver and kept her mouth shut.

Now, as the sense of danger increased, Faith abandoned her wool-gathering. She forced herself to concentrate on the feeling, following it through the mist to the land of the still-breathing.

With an uncomfortable snap! she found herself in a cluttered pawnshop, staring down the barrel of a shotgun. Beside her, Dean made hurried explanations to the weary-looking blonde with her finger on the trigger. Faith glanced over her shoulder to take in the subject of the blonde's irritation.  _Crowley_. The demon stood on a knock-off Persian rug, watching the man and the woman through slightly narrowed eyes. He did not so much as blink in Faith's direction.

_Oh, good._  She remained invisible then. These days, the Slayer preferred to do a little recon before springing into action. She eavesdropped on the discussion that followed - something about blades, Knights of Hell, a weekend with John Winchester, and Dean's continued desire to kill first Abaddon and then deal with the current King of Hell. Well, fair enough. One demonic problem at a time, Faith supposed.

The Slayer kept her eyes pinned on the blonde with the shotgun – what had Dean called her? Tara? After a quick ten minutes' of fast-talking, the younger hunter convinced her to stand down. Crowley popped off on an errand and then popped back with an unappetizing jar of tarry black Kraken goop.

Almost impressed, Faith crossed her transparent arms over her stomach and leaned against the glass counter of the pawn shop as the hunters and Crowley completed their blade-locating ritual. She watched the yellowed map of the lower forty-eight catch fire, orange tongues of flame licking at the edges of the old paper until the only section left was a small square surrounding Springfield, Missouri.

Then and only then did the Slayer release her death grip on the bond linking her to the necklace carefully tucked into that beat-up trifold wallet. It would take the Impala a day or more to race her way from the pawnshop in West Virginia to Missouri, and in the meantime, she had some thinking to do.

* * *

**December 11, 2015, somewhere along I-70, Illinois, 10:30 a.m.**

"So, boys," Faith flickered to bright visibility in the backseat of the Chevy, casually kicking her ghostly feet up against the upholstery. "What's the plan?"

Taken completely by surprise, Dean swerved into the oncoming lane and then hastily overcorrected, sending the car zooming onto the shoulder. Finally, he righted the wheel and brought his baby back into the proper lane. "Get out," he snapped through gritted teeth, glaring at the ghost's reflection in the rearview mirror.

"Fancy that," observed the King of Hell, his only physical reaction a slight lift of his right eyebrow. "Wondered what became of you. When you didn't show up downstairs, I thought Naomi might have reneged on our little deal. But now it's clear as crystal – you two aren't quite finished playing house yet, are you?"

"Shut up, Crowley," growled hunter and ghost in unison, their eyes still locked in the silvered glass.

_I was right,_  thought Faith with an garbled mixture of disappointment and triumph as she digested the demon's words. _I_  was _doomed for the rack._

"What do you want?" Dean barked at her after a few seconds' silence.

Seated across from him in shotgun, Crowley said nothing, but his narrowed eyes followed every caustic remark that bounced back and forth across the black leather upholstery.

The Slayer made a show out of stretching her arms up above her head and yawning. "Looks like you could use some help on this side-quest of yours. Finding that First Blade thing and all."

He exhaled. "So you were there, back at Tara's. I figured as much."

"What can I say?" shrugged the ghost. "I got bored."

"You're always bored," he fired back. "And the answer's same as it's always been. No. I don't need you. Get outta here."

"Fine."

Rolling her eyes, Faith disappeared from sight; however, she remained invisible in the backseat. Dean Winchester was not the boss of her, especially not when he was headed off on something reckless with only Crowley for company.

The Slayer had a sinking feeling that she had heard mention of the First Blade, long ago back in those training days with Buffy. Whatever it was, she had forgotten the specifics. One thing she could remember, though: the mildly horrified awe on Wesley's spectacled face. Wes had reserved that particular flavor of awe solely for things with major mojo. Which meant that like it or not, the hunter was going to need her help.

Besides, Faith was half-afraid of what might happen should she listen to him and just get out. Her lucid periods had been growing further and further apart lately. And from what Crowley had said, there was some deal set up to drag her soul down into the Pit. At the moment, moving on was not an option. Luckily, the combination of a demon riding shotgun and likely explosions down the road was enough to keep her awake – truly awake – for the first time in months. No way in Hell was she letting go of this.

"What was all that about Faith showing up downstairs?" the hunter asked the demon in a soft, menacing tone, turning down the radio.

"Nothing at all." Crowley's innocent act fooled no one.

"You keep friggin' lying to me, and this little field trip ends here," said Dean flatly. "Did you . . . Did you do something to her?"

The King of Hell exhaled in exasperation. "I made a deal. With an . . . acquaintance on the board of admissions for the pearly gates. Given your friend's spotted history, they were more than happy to bargain."

"What was the deal?" growled the hunter.

"Simple, really. Her soul in exchange for some meaningless information. The location of one of Lucifer's crypts along with any . . . items of special interest the crypt might contain."

Dean raised his eyebrows. "Steep price."

"Well, she never specified that it had to be an unadulterated crypt. Nor did she require proof of delivery before making the deal."

"So you cheated."

"I never cheat," said Crowley emphatically. "I simply am not responsible for those who choose not to read the fine print."

The hunter had better things to do than listen to this. "Look, whatever deal you made, I don't really care. Just take it back."

"Excuse me?"

"Take your deal back. You want me to help you deal with Abaddon, you take the deal back. Send Faith upstairs instead."

Crowley shook his head. "I'm afraid it isn't that easy. My contact was, er, killed in Metatron's takeover of Heaven. And even if they had not been, a devil cannot send a soul to Heaven. Would make rather a mockery of the entire process, don't you think?"

For a moment, Dean said nothing. He scowled at the road, half-lost in thought. Then the man cleared his throat. "I know you're still listening back there," he said gruffly to the rearview mirror.  _"Get."_

"Quite the little lapdog you've got," remarked the King of Hell.

Eyes snapping from the mirror to the demon and back to the road again, the hunter snapped, "Crowley.  _Shut. Up._  Or I'll save Abaddon for seconds and get rid of you first." The hunter glanced up at the mirror one final time. "You heard me.  _Out."_

Reluctantly accepting that the game was up, Faith fully manifested herself just long enough to make sure Dean saw her middle finger extended in his direction, and then she followed his instructions and peaced out.

* * *

This time, the Slayer waited in the veil, twiddling her transparent thumbs, until the shrieking of her danger warning became too powerful to ignore. She attempted to resist a little longer, trying to hold out for the moment when the place that had once been the insides of her ears started to ache. Faith had to wait until the danger reached its peak, until Dean Winchester was up to his neck in whatever nasty mess Crowley had gotten him into this time. Otherwise, he'd never appreciate her help.

Finally, the pressure became too much to bear, and Faith snapped from her gray fog into the well-appointed kitchen of a spacious farm house. She took in her surroundings in the space between one thunderous crash and the next. Shattered glass and crockery was strewn across the floor beside a blood-stained corpse wearing a gray baseball cap and a black jacket. The Slayer noted dispassionately that something had blown the right side of his face off.

At the wooden table in the center of the room sat a tall, burly man with a neatly trimmed salt and pepper beard, husking corn. The stranger was humming to himself as he watched the struggle happening at the far end of the table. Two demons – one a straggly-haired blonde who reminded Faith faintly of a younger Tara, the other a scruffy-looking man in a red and tan plaid coat – were pinning Dean down to the wood. They each had a hand on his wrists, and the man was brandishing a switch blade.

As the demon flicked the blade open, Dean looked over his left shoulder to the corn-husking man, an irritated demand for assistance plainly written across his features. His eyes widened and then narrowed again as he caught sight of frost forming on the single non-shattered window, and his gaze jerked past the corn man to land solidly on Faith.

"Little help here," he grunted, kicking the female demon solidly in the gut and knocking her off her feet.

"You'll do great," said the corn man complacently.

"Wasn't talking to you," replied the hunter. He threw a rapid punch at the plaid-jacketed demon, his knuckles colliding into the demon's right ear with a meaty thud. The blow was quickly followed by a second, and then a third as he pushed the demon away from him and onto the linoleum.

Snarling, the blonde retrieved Dean's demon-killing knife from where it lay abandoned beside the body of her baseball cap-wearing comrade. She charged across the floor to attack him but was brought up short by a wall of pure cold that froze her into place.

"I've got this one," announced the Slayer for Dean's benefit, her left hand extended in the direction of the demon, palm open. She jerked her arm to the right, and the blonde flew through the air to crash into the shelves of white china plates on the far side of the sink.

Furious now, the demon struggled to her feet. While Dean continued pummeling his foe on the other end of the kitchen, Faith watched in near-amusement as the blonde demon regained her balance, the knife hilt still clutched tightly in her fingers.

"Ah ah ah. I don't think so." Another gust of arctic wind swept through the room and slammed the demon into the already shattered china. "Drop it."

When the blonde still did not relinquish the knife, Faith reappeared across the kitchen, a scant six inches away. Her transparent hand closed over the demon's wrist. She tightened her grip, and bones cracked audibly. "I said, drop it."

The knife fell to the floor from nerveless fingers.

"Good girl," smiled the Slayer, as empty and unfeeling as only a ghost can. "Watch this."

She opened her hand, releasing the demon, and the knife sprang up into her palm. Still smiling that same, empty smile, she drove the ragged blade into the space between two ribs and up and into the demon's heart. Red lightning flashed in the blonde's eyes, open mouth, and along the steel edge of the knife, and then she crumpled to the ground, dead.

Turning, the Slayer took in the sight of the demon in plaid spread-eagled on the wooden table while Dean landed blow after blow onto his face and the corn-husking man watched with an appreciative expression and an open beer. Faith coughed once. Without looking, the hunter reached his left hand back towards her, his fingers spread wide. The ghost pressed the hilt of the knife into his palm.

Dean's fingers closed over the hilt, and he drove the knife downwards into the side of the third demon's throat. There came again the familiar flash of red lightening, and the demon went limp. With a wordless grunt, the hunter jerked his knife free of the demon's flesh. Then he rolled the corpse off the table and onto the linoleum, where it landed with a soft squish.

"What was this, some kind of a test?" he demanded angrily of the stranger, never once glancing at the specter standing behind him.

The corn-husking man was not similarly afflicted. He took a calm sip from his longneck and then nodded his chin in the direction of the ghost. "Didn't realize you'd brought another friend, Dean," he observed mildly, as the double doors that led to another portion of the house opened and the King of the crossroads stepped through.

Something unnervingly like a smile lingered at the corners of Crowley's mouth. "Guardian poltergeists," he quipped. "I hear they're all the range these days."

Both Dean and the stranger ignored him. "So," said the bearded man, frowning now at Faith. "Who are you?"

"She's nobody," said the hunter hurriedly. He shifted his weight to the left in what might have been an attempt to stand between the ghost and the stranger.

"I used to be somebody," Faith reproved him. The sentence came out more snappish than she had intended.

The corn-husking man raised a single bushy eyebrow. "Did you?"

Dean grumbled, "She was a vampire slayer."

"And now he can't get rid of her," Crowley interrupted, looking carefully from the hunter to the bearded man and back to Dean again. "The course of true love never did run smooth."

"How interesting," the man drew the second word out as he continued to examine the ghost closely. "Do you know who I am?" he asked her.

Faith shook her head. If she had been alive, the hair would have been rising on the back of her neck. As it was, she almost wished the 'here and now' was a little less pressing so that she could have slipped off into her mist again. "I missed that part. Kinda busy being elsewhere."

"My name is Cain," announced the bearded man.

_"Sh-t,"_  said the ghost. What in God's name had Dean gotten himself into now?  _"The_  Cain?" she asked tentatively, hoping for a negative response. She edged slightly to the right, slowly working her way around to the front of the hunter.

"Yes." Cain's eyes tracked her movement knowingly. "What did you say your name was again?"

"She was just leaving – " blurted Dean at the same time that the ghost said, "Faith. Faith the Vampire Slayer."

The man's eyebrows crept up his forehead. "Ah. I suspected as much." He glanced from the ghost to the hunter. "Like I said, Dean, I may be retired, but that doesn't mean that I don't hear things. So – attached in life and now she protects you in death? Is that how this works?"

Crowley cleared his throat. "Like I said. Guardian poltergeists. Very popular with the kids."

Cain ignored him. "Dean, care to take a walk with me out back? I need to speak with you alone."

His face growing pale beneath the three days' worth of dark scruff, Dean nodded. "Yeah, of course. Just let me take care of one thing, first."

Stepping past the ancient white refrigerator through the back door with its broken glass, Dean headed onto the back porch and strode angrily towards his Impala. Faith dragged unhappily at his heels, half-constrained by her need for proximity to the cross, half-anxious to make sure no other demons got the jump on him.

"You stay here," the hunter said firmly once he reached the car. He wrenched open the driver's side door with more force than usual and leaned into the front seat, digging his wallet out of his pocket. Dean fished inside for the turquoise and silver necklace and slipped the chain around his rearview mirror.

"Stay put," he repeated as the ghost reappeared inside the backseat of the Chevy, regarding him sullenly. Slamming the door with a little extra heat, he locked the car and returned to the back porch, where Cain was waiting for him.

"Right. Where were we?"

* * *

**December 11, 2015, Manhattan, Kansas, 9:30 p.m.**

He dropped Crowley off outside the same dingy roadhouse where he had picked up the King of Hell six days ago. Dean felt gritty down to his bones, and he was desperately in need of a shower. As he pealed out of the gravel parking lot, he glanced back over his shoulder into the backseat. "You get all that?"

The Slayer appeared on the bench seat beside him. With Crowley gone, she was reclaiming her proper place in shotgun. Dean reached out absentmindedly and turned the heater up a little higher.

"More or less," said the ghost. She had spent the better part of the drive back absorbing and memorizing every fragment of conversation that Dean and Crowley had dropped. And now she knew practically as much about Cain and the First Blade and the half-glowing, pulsating red mark freshly branded into Dean's right forearm as either of them did.

"Knew you'd been eavesdropping." For a split-second, the hunter looked nearly pleased with himself. Then the pleasure vanished, and his usual bitter gloom descended. "So . . . What do you think?"

"You actually want my opinion?" Faith wondered in shock.

"If you've still got brain cells rattling around in that non-corporeal head of yours, yeah, I do."

Momentarily taken aback, the ghost glanced down at her transparent hands on her transparent knees. This was the closest thing to an olive branch that the hunter had extended in their eight-plus months of ignoring each other. "Gift horses," she muttered, her voice barely audible over the blowing of the heater.

"You think I should've spent more time checking this one's teeth?" surmised Dean, a hint of irritation creeping into his tone.

"No," the Slayer assured him hastily. She didn't want to ruin things, not when he seemed to have taken a momentary break from the constant hostility. "Not . . . Not necessarily. Just seems like this particular blade thing might have two edges."

"Always does," he countered. "And we always handle it."

If ghosts could breathe, Faith would have sighed. "Right."

His expression softened fractionally. "This doesn't change anything, but thanks for the assist back there."

"You could've handled it without me."

"Yeah, probably could've," the hunter agreed with her. "But thanks all the same."

"You're welcome," Faith replied. She toyed with taking her leave before things got ugly, the way they always seemed to. "Now, let me guess, hit the road?"

The hunter's gaze flickered down to the crimson brand on his arm, and the corners of his mouth tightened. "In a minute," he said, his voice strained.

"You okay?" She followed his line of sight down to the slightly-glowing mark.

"Never been a huge fan of tattoos," he deflected. "Can you put that Zeppelin tape in?"

Faith was already reaching for the cassette box with spectral fingers. "Sure." She located the cassette in question and carefully pushed it into the stereo. Blasting demons across a room was easy. It was the fine motor skills that got tricky. The familiar rolling guitar intro filled the car, and Dean turned up the volume.

_Leaves are falling all around_  
_It's time I was on my way_  
_Thanks to you, I'm much obliged  
_ _For such a pleasant stay_

. . . .

"This's one of my favorites," he said to have something to say. "This and – "

"Traveling Riverside Blues," the ghost finished for him. "You've only told me like a gazillion times. One song or two before I hit the road?"

"One," said Dean decisively, but there was something else, something more fragile, lurking beneath.

_But now it's time for me to go_   
_The autumn moon lights my way_   
_For now I smell the rain_   
_And with it pain_   
_And it's headed my way_

_Ah, sometimes I grow so tired_   
_But I know I've got one thing I got to do_

. . . .

Faith watched the hunter carefully as they listened to that one song. She glanced between the man's closed-off face and the painful-looking gift from Cain. As she watched and listened, the Slayer slowly came to a decision.

Crowley's jokes about a guardian poltergeist aside, Dean Winchester needed her. And however much she might long to finally lay her burdens down and be truly dead - whatever that meant - moving on could not be an option. Because gift horses or not, bad idea or not, consequences or not, as long as he needed her, Heaven and Hell would simply have to wait their turn.


	5. Dinner and a Show

 

* * *

**December 14th, 2015, Lebanon, Kansas, 6:45 p.m.**

"We have got to work out a better for system for this." The ghost glanced disapprovingly at the pale yellow flame from the Zippo lighter as it licked hungrily at the base of the silver crucifix held in the hunter's hand. She backed against the wall near the door and said in a mock-serious voice, "I mean, what if you put a hole in the carpet?"

Dean flicked the lighter closed and dropped it onto the mattress beside him. "Very funny."

Looking away from the immaculately made bed with its dark blue comforter and the man sitting on it, Faith surveyed the rest of the room. Since the last time she'd been here, the hunter had dragged a television in from somewhere else in the rest of the bunker. His laptop was perched beside it on the TV stand, the two linked by a black auxiliary cord. The formerly bare walls were now adorned with a variety of edged weapons and firearms, and a giant-sized bowl of popcorn sat on the cheap wood nightstand. If Faith wished hard enough, she could almost smell the buttery aroma.

"You've redecorated. I like it. Not too overcompensate-y at all." She gestured to an assault rifle on the wall to the left of his bed.

Unamused, Dean folded his arms across his chest. Quips seemed to be something of a Slayer specialty, but that didn't mean she was any good at them. He brushed one black-socked foot against his ankle, tugging the hem of his dark jeans back into place. The chain of the cross was still wrapped tightly around the palm of his left hand. "Sit," he said stiffly. "We need to talk."

The ghost raised her eyebrows. "We need to talk?" she echoed, unsure if she had heard him correctly. Faith tossed her head, and it sent tendrils of hair perpetually coated with Fyarl mucus swinging into her face. "Dean, we don't talk. That's not our schtick, remember?"

When the hunter did not immediately reply, she carried on, "I show up, you threaten me, I say something dismissive, and then you banish me again. Or I pop up in the nick of time, decapitate whatever nasty's got your back against the wall, and then you tell me to get the hell out. That's how we work these days. In case you've forgotten," she snapped with extra bite.

Dean swallowed, his gaze focused somewhere around the ghost's black-sweatered midriff. "I know. But I've been thinking . . . Ever since I got back from our little expedition with Crowley, I've had the place to myself – Sam's out with Cass doing somethin' or other. And I've got an idea."

"The thing with Crowley was a month ago, wasn't it?" Some of the anger leached out of her voice.

"Four days," the hunter corrected her. He raised his eyes to meet Faith's. "It was four days ago."

"Oh," the ghost attempted to play it casual. With another toss of her head, she broke the eye contact and stared instead at the television. "Timing, you know, never really been my thing."

"Right," said Dean, clearly not believing a word that she said. "Here's the deal. I keep thinking, and maybe this is my fault."

Faith snorted, and she glanced away from the back of the TV stand long enough to give him a quizzical look. "In what world is my crappy memory your fault?"

The hunter ignored her. He had gone over this half a dozen times in the last two days, and now that he had some semblance of what he wanted to say, he was not going to allow anything to derail him. "I mean," he continued, eyes locked on that almost-transparent face, "I've seen it before – Sam and me, we see it like every couple years at least. You know, ghosts who can't move on because the living won't let them. And, uh, maybe the reason you can't see a light is because I haven't . . . dammit . . . "

Under the crippling weight of the ghost's silent scrutiny, Dean let out a long exhale through pursed lips. This was harder than he'd anticipated – and he'd planned on it being pretty damn hard. Thankfully, Faith said nothing, merely watched him from beneath furrowed eyebrows streaked with slime, her hands tensed into fists by her sides. Slayer girl had always been good about giving him room to breathe.

Finding the threads of his planned speech, he went on, "You and me, well, we were never really much for words. So I guess I never really said . . ."

_God, here came the worst part._

"You were my girl, Faith."

Eyebrows climbing skyward toward her hairline, the ghost widened her eyes dramatically. Words were not necessary to make her meaning clear. The Slayer's skeptical expression spoke volumes.

"I mean, not like that," the hunter amended. "Don't go reading any high school romance crap into this. I guess I just don't know how to say it any other way." He glanced down at his hands in his lap and then looked back into her cold eyes. "But I should have said it. Before."

"So you're telling me this is what - an intervention?" The ghost gazed almost miserably at the bowl of popcorn on the nightstand. She had loved popcorn. He knew she loved popcorn. As well-intentioned as this might have been, it came down a little closer on the side of cruel. "Where you set up snacks and a movie and then you . . . you send me on to the Great Hereafter with some big hurrah? That your plan, Dean?"

"Kind of," the hunter mumbled softly.

Giving up on the dream of popcorn, Faith turned back to him. "Well, it's a damn stupid plan. Was I . . . was I the only one paying attention in that car?" The Slayer's voice rose in volume. "You kick me out of here, out of this veil thing, and my soul's getting dragged straight downstairs. Crowley said -"

"Crowley's a liar," Dean interrupted her.

"Yeah, but he only lies when he can get something out of it. What the hell would he have to gain from making up that story?"

She had a point, but the hunter would never admit that. Not when he was being scolded by a shouting ghost.

"If you'd just listen to me – " he started, but then stopped short in his tracks as a siren began sounding from somewhere overhead.

The ghost rocked back onto her insubstantial heels. If she leaned any further into the wall, she would fall through it. "What is that?"

"Intruder." In one smooth movement, Dean dropped the necklace onto the bed covers and pulled his Colt M1911A1 out of the waistband of his jeans. "You stay put."

 _Screw that,_ thought Faith, but she kept her mouth shut. Instead, she waited until the hunter had charged out of the room into the hallway, and then she swept up the cross in her own ghostly grip. Following the sound of the siren, she slowly glided her way toward the main part of the bunker. As the Slayer got closer, she began to hear raised voices.

"He gave you a _key_?" Dean was demanding of someone. A familiar intruder, then?

"Well, more like he told us where the spare was hidden."

The ghost froze on the spot, unable to cover the final ten feet to the doorway to the library. She knew that voice. That was – that was –

"Unfortunately, Sam forgot the part about disabling the alarms _before_ we used the key. Still, I guess it worked out okay. Brought you at a run."

"What are you doing here?" Dean groaned with the extreme exasperation he had typically reserved for Sam, for her, and for . . . Before Faith could complete that thought, the first intruder spoke again.

"It's Faith's birthday. You think Becka and I'd let you spend it moping around by yourself?" asked Lily with exasperation.

"Get in, loser." Even without seeing it, the ghost could hear Beck's trademark 'I'm so clever' grin. "We're going to dinner."

* * *

**December 14th, 2015, Mankato, Kansas, 7:30 p.m.**

"I still don't get why we had to drive all the way out here," Dean grumbled, flipping the laminated pages of his menu.

Lily and Becka exchanged a silent glance. They had kept doing that, all along the twenty mile drive from Lebanon to Mankato. If they didn't quit, Dean was going to have to say something. He hoped they quit. He'd already said enough things tonight.

"Because," Lily said patiently, taking a sip from her ice water, "this is the closest steakhouse that wasn't a franchise."

"Not that there's anything wrong with Longhorn," Becka put in her two cents. "But Sam said you've been there a few times already, so we wanted to take you somewhere else . . . somewhere more special."

Amused in spite of himself, Dean raised an eyebrow. "So you picked a place called _Buffalo Roam_?"

The blonde shrugged. "Some times you just gotta work with what you have, Dean."

"Oh, and get whatever you want," added Becka. "I was promoted at work last month, and the firm just sent out the Christmas bonuses, so dinner's on me tonight." She frowned at the final page of the menu. "Unfortunately, I didn't realize this place only carried soft drinks and beer."

Rolling her eyes at the last remark, Lily elbowed her best friend in a completely unsubtle manner. "Don't forget to tell him."

The hunter mentally prepared himself for atomic bombs. "Tell me what?"

Becka bit her lip and then admitted, "I'm engaged."

Well. That wasn't at all what he had thought she would say. Dean made a show of staring down at Becka's ring-less fingers where they were curled around the back of her menu.

The engineer flushed dark red. "It had to be re-sized," she admitted.

"You're marrying a guy who doesn't know your ring size?" Feigning shock, Dean turned to Lily. "You sure he's good enough for her?"

Lily smiled, warmth gleaming in her blue eyes. She knew how to play this game as well as he did. "We-ell, here's the thing . . ." she drawled.

"Lil!" Becka repaid her earlier elbow with an impulsive punch to the right shoulder. "Not you, too."

"All right, all right, I guess he's pretty good," the blonde informed Dean begrudgingly. "Spike and Andrew did deep background checks on him, too. Everything was clean."

He turned back to Becka. "And this guy treats you well?"

If it was possible, the brunette blushed ever darker. "Dean, come on. You don't . . . you don't have to do the overprotective brother thing."

"Yeah, I do," replied Dean, and the levity drained from his face. "This is important. He treat you well?"

Becka folded her menu closed and looked directly into the hunter's clear green eyes. "He does."

"Does he know about your Slayer gig?"

"He knows about that, too."

"And?" Dean pressed with an odd mixture of tension and gentleness.

"And he's okay with it. He's not a huge fan, but he's okay with it." The engineer reached for her water glass. "When things started getting serious, I called Buffy, and we've been kind of negotiating my retirement package."

"Retirement package? That's new."

"It's . . ." Lily stepped in for her friend, who was watching the hunter cautiously now. "It's a new thing. Since . . . Since Faith."

Dean did not flinch. Not while they were watching him. "So tell me," he continued as if the sound of her name wasn't still enough to jar him out of pretending that everything was normal for one freaking dinner, "what's the deal with this retirement thing?"

After exchanging another one of those meaningful glances with Lily, the brunette explained, "There are so many new girls that get called these days. So those of us who've been in it for at least fifteen years are starting to be offered the option to take on more of an, uh, advisory role. I've still got a few more years before that's an option, but I wanted to start the talks early. James – James wants to have kids sometime in the near future, and so do I."

"Good for you, Becks," said Dean quietly as their waitress, a skinny redhead with an abundance of freckles, approached the table. "Good for you."

The redhead, whose name was Chelsea, took their orders – three twelve-ounce filet mignons, complete with salads, rolls, and baked potatoes – and then returned to bring Dean a beer. Once she had disappeared a second time, he said to Lily, "Tell me what you're doing these days, Bernadette Peters."

Grinning, the blonde began counting her plans off one at a time on her fingertips. "Finishing my master's degree in May, then I'm planning on moving to New York with one of my classmates – thought I'd try to audition out there for a year or two. And while I'm doing that, if it doesn't work, I'm going to get my teaching certificate. There's a private school in Cleveland that keeps asking me to consider taking a position there teaching high school students how to slob their way through Romeo and Juliet in a couple of years when their current theater person retires."

"You're better than teaching high school students," the hunter commented, uncapping his longneck and taking a long, slow drink.

Lily looked at him almost pityingly. "Have you ever seen me in a show, Dean?"

"Uh . . ." He had meant to. More than once. But somehow, one thing or another had always come up. "Sorry. I guess I've never gotten around to it."

"It's okay. If you want to change that, I'm doing a production of Sondheim's Into the Woods in Cleveland in February. You and Sam should come."

"Thanks. We'll be there," Dean promised her, a sinking feeling growing in his gut. It wasn't just his brother who he'd been letting down lately. The girls had lost someone, too. And he hadn't even tried to be there for them. The hunter cleared his throat. "I mean it," he went on. "Unless it's the goddamn Apocalypse itself, we'll be there."

Still smiling, Lily nodded. "I'll let you know when they set official dates, so you can get good seats."

They continued talking while waiting for their food to arrive. Dean kept things as light as possible and was grateful when the steaks came quickly. The girls – he had to stop thinking of them as girls. They were only a few years shy of thirty, now that he considered it – had sense enough not to ask him the questions that he dreaded. Still, Lily and Becka knew more things about the horrible recent history with Kevin and Crowley and Castiel than he had anticipated. That was probably Sam's fault.

Lingering over small talk, no one suggested leaving until the restaurant closed at nine. On the way home, Dean reclined in the backseat while Lily drove her rental car back to the bunker and Becka briefly called her fiancé to check in. When they arrived, she stared at the old WPA power plant sitting on top of the Men of Letters' hideout and grinned. "This really is the Batcave, isn't it?"

As he slid across the fabric upholstery and prepared to step out of the car, Dean clapped a hand on her shoulder. "Thanks. You – you girls want to stay the night?" he asked, glancing between Lily and Becka.

"You sure you got space?" queried the brunette dryly.

A characteristically charming smile lighting his face, he said, "Honey, all I got's space."

The girls - women - Slayers - gave each other a final communicative look, and then Lily accepted for them, "Sure, Thanks, Dean."

He showed the Slayers to two of the more recently used bedrooms – Cass had stayed in one and Charlie the other – pointed them towards the bathroom and the spare toothbrushes, and then retired to be alone. First things first, Dean swung through the kitchen to root out the last bottle of Johnny Walker hidden beneath the sink. Then and only then did he finally brave the doorway to his own room.

It was surprisingly warm inside. Someone - _damn her_ \- had rousted an old oil heater from one of the other rooms in the bunker and had dragged it over to the wall on the left side of his bed. The full bowl of popcorn was still sitting there on the nightstand, but that same someone had accessed his HBO-Go account and was now sprawled across his bed, watching the murder of a pregnant woman at a feast with a mildly interested expression on her transparent features.

"Never took you for a Thrones fan," Dean said quietly. As he passed the television, he turned the volume a little louder. Better for Lily and Becka to hear the screams of the Red Wedding than whatever uncomfortable conversation he and this specter were about to have.

The ghost glanced up from the massacre. "How was dinner?" she asked conversationally, rolling over to the far side of the bed to make space for him to sit.

Acting from habit, he sat. "Dinner was fine," he answered. "Lily wants to move to New York at the beginning of next summer. Becka's guy finally proposed. They're doing really well, you know."

"About time that James got his ass in gear. You get the steak?"

Dean glanced over his shoulder to stare at her suspiciously. "How'd you guess – "

She shrugged. "They're my girls. I know them about as well as I know you. Which is to say, pretty damn well. Of course they'd take you to a steakhouse. And it's not like you to pass up free steak. So . . ." she allowed the word to trail off into a whispery silence. "Where were we? Before you all went off to be carnivores."

"Pretty sure you were yelling at me." Dean pulled the top off the whiskey and tossed it across the room. It collided with a wall somewhere and disappeared from view. If he was going to continue talking to her, he needed to be a lot more than just pleasantly buzzed off of the two beers at dinner.

"Huh," mused the dead woman lightly. "Doesn't sound like something I'd do. Sounds much more like Sam, if you ask me."

Dean laughed, and he coughed on a burning swallow of whiskey as it scorched down his throat. "You're not wrong," he mumbled.

"Anyway, let's skip the yelling part." Faith flickered. One second she was lying on the bed a few feet away from him, the next she was standing in the far corner beside the nightstand. "While you were off eating steak, leaving me to try to smell and touch this stupid bowl of popcorn that I'm never gonna be able to eat – were you planning on torturing me, by the way, or was that just accidental?" She ran a hand through the fluffy white snack, her smile halfway mournful.

"Accidental," the hunter said sheepishly after taking another pull from the whiskey bottle.

Faith dropped the popcorn back into its bowl. "Better." Any traces of sorrow disappeared from her expression, to be replaced with a mulish set to her jaw that reminded the hunter a little too much of his younger brother. "Anyway, I did some thinking of my own, and, Dean, the answer's no."

"Excuse me?" It was not that he hadn't heard her. Dean wasn't even sure what question she was answering at this point.

The ghost took one slow, sauntering step in his direction. "No, I'm not leaving. There's no goddamn point," she continued as the hunter's whiskey-free hand gripped the edge of the navy comforter until his knuckles turned white.

"Why not?" he said in a voice only just above a whisper.

Faith stepped closer, until the edges of her ghostly jeans were brushing up against his worn ones where he sat on the corner of the bed. It forced him to look up at her.

"You heard what your new bestie Crowley said in the car the other day," she spoke in a neutral tone. Strictly the facts. "There's some deal to drag my soul down into the Pit. So until somebody gets ahold of those winged douchebags upstairs and convinces them that I really have been a proper little Girl Scout, what's the point of even tryin' to move on?"

"That's – "

The Slayer kept going, "Every month I spend up here means ten less years on the rack, isn't that right? I'm not like you, Dean. I wouldn't survive thirty years there – trust me, I'd break way before that. And I have zero interest in becoming a demon and possessing some poor schmuck's meatsuit. I liked my old one too well to replace it with anything."

As a ghost, she did not need to pause for breath, but the Slayer did so anyway out of habit. "I mean, seriously, if my options are Hell or sticking it out here, that's a pretty clear cut choice to me. And if I can't be nice and peacefully dead-dead, at least I can have a purpose."

"And what would that purpose be?" Dean asked with a fraction of dread. He scooted off the end of the bed and crossed to the other side of the room, putting some space – and a giant heap of televised corpses – between them.

The ghost smiled wolfishly as she watched him move, a familiar phantom grin that curdled Dean's insides.

"Same thing it's always been," she told him, her voice barely audible over the continued cacophony of the television. "Save the world. Save myself. Save your scrawny ass."

"For the record, my ass is not scrawny," Dean responded automatically.

Cocking her head to the side, the ghost gave the hunter a blatant once-over. "Oh, I know," she chuckled.

Eyes flashing wild, Dean spun on his heel and turned his back to her. "You see?" he said to the wall. "This is . . . This is why I can't have you sticking around."

Faith slowly glided through the queen-sized bed to stand a few feet away from him. This time, she at least made a pretense of giving him space. "Why not?"

The hunter huffed, and an unwelcome truth slid out, "Because I like it. That's why not."

"Dean," it was half a reprimand, half a laugh, "you're allowed to like things."

"Things, Faith." If he didn't look, it was almost as if his friend was actually standing behind him instead of her shade. " _Things_ ," he repeated for emphasis. "Not this. Never this."

"O-kay," said the ghost, her sharp voice heavy with sarcasm.

Sighing, Dean forced himself to turn around. "Look, let me explain it for you." He scrunched his eyes shut and then opened them again, wishing that he hadn't abandoned the whiskey on the other side of the room.

"I miss you, Faith," he said her name slowly, the word barely louder than a whisper. "There's not a goddamn day goes by that I don't miss you. I run into a vampire on a hunt; I miss you. I get drunk; I miss you. I see a beagle; I miss you. I hear half of Bob Seger's catalogue; I miss you. I _wake up_ ; I miss you."

"God," breathed the ghost so softly that it made Dean's chest ache.

He retreated another few feet along the wall, gesturing to the ghost as he went, "And this – this thing – it's not you. It's ruining you." The hunter ran a hand over his face.

"And I used to hate it," he admitted. In the quiet space between the two of them, between his still-beating heart and her forever silent one, he could admit another unpleasant truth. "Hated being around you more than I thought I could hate anything that wasn't a demon."

Looking deep into those impersonal dark eyes, Dean sighed again. A little of the fight slumped out of his shoulders. "But lately, as much as I'm trying not to, I'm startin' not to care anymore. Because I'm so goddamn tired, and I miss you so goddamn much. And the only - the only thing that's worse than having you around is not having you around." His gaze slid down to the carpet beneath his boots. "So I'll take whatever I can get."

"Big speech," said the ghost after a moment's silence.

He jerked his eyes up from the ground to see her watching him carefully, her expression oddly sympathetic. "Goddammit, Faith," he swore.

Blazing green fire met dark pools of endless water as their gazes locked. "I like it when you say my name," observed the ghost. "Makes me feel more . . . here."

Dean stared at her in a mixture of fury and stark disbelief, and then he lost it. Head in his hands, the hunter crumpled in half, sliding his way down the wall until he had his back against the plaster and his feet against the steel legs of the bed. When he finally looked away from his own palms, he said only, "God, this is frakked up."

"Yeah." Without waiting for an invitation – they were far past that point – the ghost tugged the oil heater closer to the hunter and then settled herself onto the carpet beside him. Her icy fingers reached for his. "But can we at least be frakked up together again? We always did better together," she reminded him.

"I miss you," Dean dodged the question. "You're sittin' right next to me, and I still miss you so bad that it hurts." A single tear escaped from the burning misery welling up behind his right lower eyelid and streaked its way over his cheekbone. He brushed it away angrily with his free hand. "How the hell is that possible?"

"Whiskey makes everything possible," said Faith. Then, in a much firmer voice, "Dean, for what it's worth, I miss you, too."

He continued on as if he had not heard her, because acknowledging what she had said would start the hurting all over again. "You're so fired up about not going to Hell," he recalled an earlier part of their conversation. "Get in line, Boston. I'm probably booked there first class on the next red-eye. After what happened with Kevin, and then this damn Mark and all."

Grateful for a subject change, the ghost glanced down to their linked fingers, the place where flesh gripped phantasm, and then her gaze traced the edges of Dean's plaid sleeves halfway to the elbow, where she knew the Mark had to be. "Have you . . ." she began tentatively. "Have you notice any changes yet?"

"No," the hunter said brusquely, brushing at his eye again. "It just burns. But it used to belong to Cain. By my reckoning, that kinda makes it the opposite of the damn Holy Grail."

"Not much to argue with there," agreed the ghost slowly. "Then I guess . . . I guess we're both Hellbound?"

The back of Dean's skull collided against the wall, and he stared up at the ceiling. "Guess so."

"So . . ." the ghost hesitated and then repeated her question. "Frakked up together?"

"Yeah." Sighing a final time, Dean surrendered completely. He couldn't fight her off. Not anymore. "Together."


	6. The Spy Who Shagged Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the delay! I had two big medical exams to take, and my beta has been very busy as well. Hopefully the length of this chapter will make up for it. Once again, we're diving into Dean Winchester dreamland.

 

* * *

"Page. Page. Earth to Agent Page."

CIA Special Agent Jimmy Page forced himself to glance up and away from the debriefing notes in his hands and the paperclip that he had been tracing with his thumb, again and again, for the last five minutes. His throat dry, he looked along the conference table, his gaze skittering over the tanned skin and wavy cafe-au-lait colored hair of the woman three seats away from him, until it reached the white board at the head of the table, where his boss's boss, Assistant Director Henriksen, was glaring at him impatiently.

"Apologies, sir," Jimmy said quickly. "I was reviewing some of the details for tonight."

Henriksen raised a single dark eyebrow. "Well, now that you've joined us, we can review them together."

The tan woman three seats down made a choking noise that almost sounded like a cough, but Agent Page knew better. That was a laugh. Slightly humiliated by having been called out by the Assistant Director, he stared down at the notes in front of him as if his eyes could burn through the paper. The woman coughed again.

"You need a lozenge, Agent Lyons?" barked Henriksen.

"No, sir," said the woman in a honeyed voice of utmost professionalism. "Won't happen again, sir." She turned her head, and for a moment Agent Page caught a glimpse of familiar brown eyes, glinting with amusement.

"It had better not, Now, if you'll all turn to page two . . ."

Special Agent Page listened with only half of his brain. The other half was still too discombobulated. What was Hope Lyons doing here? He had not seen her in - God, it had to be what? Five years at least.

He scanned the details of tonight's operation, trying to pretend that her presence had not thrown him. They had been friends, once upon a time. Met during orientation at the Farm. They'd been in the same cohort during training. Ate lunch together every now and again. Neither of them'd had anyone show up at graduation. Most of the other cadets had somebody - a parent, a spouse, a sibling. Not Jimmy. And not Hope. They'd gone out to dinner with a few of the other 'orphans' as their combat instructor had jokingly called them.

But they hadn't lasted at dinner long. Hope'd come up with some excuse before dessert arrived, and the next thing he knew, he was following her into some motel room and they were going at it like rabbits.

It'd been like that for a long time. For the first two years out of the Farm, he and Lyons had been assigned as partners. The suits upstairs seemed to think that they worked well together. They did - Jimmy had to remind himself - and not just at the sex thing.

Two tours in Afghanistan and a third in Iraq with the army had zapped him of most of his people skills. At least the ones that didn't involve lying. But that was the thing about Hope. She didn't give a damn about his people skills. Hers were more than enough to make up for them. Hope had grown up on the streets of South Boston for most of her childhood, clawed her way out through the foster care system. She had survived some pretty rough places, and most of her scars tended to be on the invisible side. Jimmy wasn't supposed to know any of this, but then again, they'd been partners.

He knew more things about Hope than anyone in the Agency ought to know about each other, and it went both ways. They were the only ones who were, as Jimmy's immediate boss Agent Harvelle put it, 'willing to put up with your manipulative crap.' Sometimes, Jimmy wasn't exactly good at that whole 'golden rule' thing. He struggled to trust his fellow agents. Everyone except for Ellen - Special Supervisory Agent Harvelle, that is - and Agent Lyons.

For two years, Agent Lyons had been his slender shadow. They criss-crossed the globe together - several times - traveling everywhere from Zurich to Kiev to Singapore to carry out the missions that the agency assigned them. It had been a perfect arrangement, or as perfect as such things ever became.

But then there had been Kiev and their giant mistake. Jimmy still wasn't sure if it had been her idea or his. Either way, the suits in Washington had finally gotten evidence of the sex thing. Agent Harvelle had harbored suspicions since their first week out of training, Jimmy knew, but she'd as much as told them that she didn't care. As long as he and Hope kept doing their thing, slipping past customs and weaving their way through half a dozen identities in as many weeks, Harvelle hadn't given a damn if they were frakking.

Washington cared. They had been separated, reassigned, and Jimmy hadn't heard so much as a squeak from Lyons. Not a call, not a text, not a damn email. And it had been five years.

Now there she was, sitting three chairs down from him, her dark brown hair a few shades lighter, a little more curled, her Irish skin surprisingly tan. (It had to be fake, thought Jimmy. No way Lyons could ever tan that dark. Even in Mozambique, she'd never been browner than him.)

"So, in summary," continued Henriksen, his low buzz of a voice reclaiming Jimmy's attention, "since the Metropolitan Gala is already going to be crawling with security, I want Roberts and Stevens to handle liaising with the FBI and the LEOs on this one. Page?"

"Yes, sir?"

"You and Lyons have the most experience. You're going to be our two on the inside."

"Excuse me?"

"I need you two to attend the Gala. You'll find all the things you need are already in your room at the Carlyle. Reservation's under Remington. Our intelligence is clear that the Falcon is in grave danger tonight. You must protect it, whatever it takes. The auction  _must_  go on."

Agent Lyons swiveled her head towards the Assistant Director. "Whatever it takes?" she echoed.

Hair stood up on the back of Jimmy's neck. He recognized that psuedo-innocent tone. It never meant anything good. For anyone.

_Damn it, Hope_ , he thought fleetingly.

"Whatever it takes," repeated Henriksen. "I assume you can handle that?"

The woman chuckled, low in her throat. "I think me an' Page here've got that taken care of." She turned in her chair long enough to look at him, her gleaming smile predatory. "Don't we, Jim?"

Jimmy nodded at the Assistant Director. "We can handle it," he assured him with more confidence than he felt. He wasn't the type to get shook up, but working with Lyons had always been a little touch and go. Sometimes touch, then go.

"Good," said the Director. "God willing, we'll meet back here tomorrow morning to debrief. You have your assignments. Go to them. Team dismissed."

Agent Lyons filed out of the conference room with the rest of the team. Not once did she glance back at Jimmy to see if he was coming. She would meet him later at their assigned hotel. That was the way they had always operated. Jimmy didn't see any reason why a five years' hiatus would be enough to change that.

Jimmy fumbled over his paperwork and then slid it into the inside pocket of his long gray pea coat. It was a little . . . preppy . . . for him, but Ellen had recommended that he buy it once he'd been officially stationed in New York City six months ago. "You need to blend in, boy," she'd told him. "Or at the very least stand out in the right ways."

As long as the coat didn't itch, Jimmy didn't much mind. After all, he'd never really dressed in any way he preferred. When he was a kid, his father dictated his wardrobe - in the sense that whatever his dad bought was what he wore. After high school, it had been ROTC and the university wrestling team dress code. Then it had been the Army. And then the Agency. And, at one point in time, Lyons.

Save for Henriksen, he was the last to leave the room. As Jimmy approached the door, the Assistant Director cleared his throat. "Agent Page, one thing before you go."

Folding his coat over his arm, Jimmy turned. "Yes, sir?"

"Close the door, son."

Nothing good ever came of a superior officer calling you 'son.' Jimmy fought the urge to gnaw on the inside of his lip. That had been a tell of his, once upon a time. Not anymore. He pushed the door to with his hip and stepped over towards the Assistant Director, automatically shifting to attention. 'How can I help you, sir?"

"I've got a special mission for you, Jim. Ellen says you're one of the best that she's seen in her thirty years working for the Agency. I've reviewed your files, and she's right. Nothing but commendations in the last five years. You're quite the Special Agent."

"Thank you, sir." Still, Jimmy waited for the shoe to drop.

"You used to work with Agent Lyons, did you not?"

"Long time ago, sir. She was a good agent."

"'Was.' Funny you should choose that word."

"Sir?"

Henriksen lowered his voice to just above a whisper. The volume of secrets. Agent Page felt a pit growing in his stomach. In his line of work, secrets always boded ill for somebody. "We have reason to believe that Agent Lyons is conspiring with the North Koreans," he said slowly, enunciating every word so that there was no room for misunderstanding. "We've had suspicions for quite a while, but no hard evidence. Well -" he laughed in a way that wasn't a laugh - "the evidence came in last week."

Jimmy straightened his shoulders even further. "Why are you telling me this, sir?"

"She's been very careful, but from what we've been able to uncover, Agent Lyons was turned shortly after your partnership ended. Which makes you her last partner. Which makes it your job to clean up this mess."

"I'm . . ." the man hesitated. "I'm not sure I understand, sir."

"Clean up your mess. That's an order, Agent Page."

This time, it was impossible for Jimmy to deny understanding. Instead, he simply bobbed his head once and watched as Henricksen left the room. For a long moment, Jimmy stared at the charcoal pea coat folded his arm, lost in uncertainty. Then he nodded again, this time to an empty conference room, slipped his arms through the sleeves of his coat, and headed for the Carlyle.

* * *

"Room for Remington," Jimmy said to the man at the front desk, tucking his chin to the side so that his features would be obscured from the security camera nailed to the wall above the hotel clerk.

The balding man smiled at him obsequiously. "Your missus was here earlier," he said, his grin showing far too many teeth. "She took the only key, but it's room 4-F. Just to your left after you get off the elevators."

"Thank you," replied Jimmy. He followed the clerk's directions to the elevator and stepped inside. The special agent kept his eyes pinned to the closing doors as the elevator began its shuddering climb upwards.

A minute later, he knocked once on the locked door to room 4-F. The door swung open before the ringing echo of his knock had died away. A tan hand shot out into the hallway, snatched at the collar of his pea coat, and dragged him into the room.

"What, no hug?" teased the brunette woman from the debriefing as she released him. She pushed the door closed and locked it.  _Hope Lyons_.

His mouth was oddly dry. Jimmy could barely take his eyes off of her long enough to survey his surroundings - an expensively shabby standard hotel room with a single king-sized bed in the middle of the place. Damn the agency. If he didn't know better, he would have sworn they were trying to . . . Well, perhaps that was part of the game after all.

"Long time, no see," he said lamely. "Where you been, Hope?"

She shrugged effortlessly, a knowing glint in her dark eyes. "Same place I've always been, Page. Wherever the agency sends me. You know how that goes." Hope crossed the room to lift a faded red duffel bag up onto the bed. Her back turned to him, the agent unzipped the duffel and began rummaging inside.

"Whatcha got there?" Jimmy asked in a casual tone, his right hand slipping inside his coat to settle on the grip of his Glock.

"Research." Hope dropped a stack of papers a good six inches thick onto the floral comforter. "And snacks." She produced a brown paper bag stained liberally with grease at the corners and tossed it across the room to him. "You still like pickles on your burgers, right?"

Releasing his service weapon, Jimmy caught the bag automatically, and then his eyes locked on the logo printed on the grease-soaked paper. His mouth tightened, and once again he was tempted to bite his lip. "Jimmy Dean's? Like the breakfast sausage? That's new."

Hope flopped onto the couch near the hotel room door, the bundle of papers tucked into the curve of her elbow. "Place just opened around the corner. I was feeling charitable, so I got you one."

It was more than that, and they both knew it. The greasy paper bag was a warning shot. In her characteristic round-about way, this was Hope reminding him of all the things she knew about him. She knew his actual name - the one he had been born with, not the one the Agency issued assignments to. At least, she knew part of it.

Long before Jimmy Page existed, there had been an Army sniper named Dean, who served three tours and went home to Fort Riley to put a bullet through his own brains. He'd been all set to do it, and then he got a call from D.C. There were some suits in Washington who wanted to interview him, wanted to offer him a job.

Dean the sniper had had nothing left at that point. His mother died when he was a child, his father had passed away from a stroke while he was at KU, and his little brother had suffocated to death trying to save his girlfriend from an apartment complex fire while Dean was serving his final tour. He had nothing left but the rounds in his service weapon. And it didn't much matter if he died in Kansas or D.C. So he had taken the interview. By the time he took the posting with the agency, he had emerged from a chrysalis as Jimmy Page, leaving dead-beat Dean with his family of ghosts far behind.

Jimmy unwrapped the hamburger with a little extra force, then he plopped his weight onto the couch next to Hope, struggling not to think of all the ways she truly could make his life a living hell, double agent or not. "I do still like pickles," he said cautiously. "Thanks."

"What are partners for?" Hope began spreading her many pages out across the hotel room coffee table.

"Mmph," murmured Jimmy in careful agreement, his mouth filled with hamburger. He swallowed. "Shall we get down to business?"

"And here I thought you'd never ask," cooed the woman, grinning wolfishly up at him in a way that reminded Jimmy sharply of why he had been so willing to get into trouble with her in the first place, all those years ago.

_Damn it._ Even without Henricksen's orders, he was screwed. With them, he was headed straight to hell.

* * *

Jimmy wasn't entirely sure how it happened. They'd spent hours pouring over Hope's intel and strategizing their final plans for the evening. Henriksen had given them basic instructions, but, as always, the exact details were left to the partners. On some level, Jimmy was surprised how easily he fell back into his former rapport with Hope as they bickered over tactics. After all, it had been five stinking years.

Apparently, however, five years meant nothing, not when they wrapped up their plans with a full two hours before they needed to be at the Met. Jimmy couldn't say how it had happened, but one moment he was carefully feeding the last of their notes into a portable paper shredder perched over the hotel room trash can. In the next moment, he was stripping himself out of the neatly tailored suit (another part of the wardrobe Ellen had insisted he buy) and falling into bed with Hope.

A voice in the back of his head whispered that he couldn't - he  _shouldn't_  - not with Henriksen's special mission hanging over his head. But Jimmy had never been great at denying himself, and with Hope there, lean and tan and scarred and dangerous, his resistance crumpled into ashes.

If the Assistant Director was right, if Lyons was truly a double agent, chances were she might kill him at any second. Jimmy laughed at the thought, although it was enough to turn him on even more, driving him to ram his heels down in the mattress and twist his hips to flip their interlocking bodies until Hope was trapped beneath him. So what if this was dangerous? There was always danger.

Besides, he knew Hope. If she was going to betray him, she wouldn't do it now. She would wait until she had used him to get the Falcon. When there was a mission on the line, Hope was far too practical to kill an asset. So he closed his eyes and drove all thoughts of Henriksen out of his mind.

After, when his former partner finally released him and rolled away, wrapping herself in the sheets, he stared up at the ceiling and said, "Forgot how many things we were good at."

Hope chuckled as she ran red-taloned fingers through her tangled hair. "Poor Page," she replied with an utter lack of sincerity. "Nobody giving you any lovin' these days?"

Turning onto his side to face her, Jimmy took in the fine layer of sweat glistening on her forehead and the handful of fading bruises scattered just below her left clavicle. Four of them, small and oval. He remembered the fifth, matching mark on her back. Not that long ago, someone had put their hand on her shoulder and  _squeezed_.

He reached out with a single finger to trace the path of the bruises - one, two, three, four - and then retracted his hand. Jimmy glanced at his watch. "We got ninety minutes. Shower?" As he looked up from the watch face, he met her eyes, the brown irises almost black in the half-light of the hotel room.

Hope nodded but did not say a word until they were both standing beneath the spray of the palatial shower, passing an unnecessarily fancy shampoo bottle across the granite tile. Her good mood from earlier had disappeared, leaving in its place the woman who had schemed and fought and assassinated her way more than halfway across the world, Jimmy always at her side.

"You think they're listening?" she asked abruptly, massaging the expensive shampoo into her scalp while her ex-partner rinsed off beneath the shower head, raking his nails through his short hair.

"You don't trust the suits?" He kept his voice low, barely audible under the noise of the spray. Ever since the Farm, they had saved all the truly important conversations for the shower. If you talked quietly enough, not even the ears in the walls could hear you when the water splashed down.

The woman did not dignify his comment with a reply. Instead, she snorted and nudged him away from the water with a shoulder.

Jimmy held onto his next question until he had lifted the single bar of soap from its neat alcove carved into the granite walls. He ran the thin white square along his arms, leaving a faint line of suds from his shoulder along the bend of his elbows and then down to his fingertips. Then he continued soaping down his chest, his stomach - still slightly sunken in despite the hamburger earlier - and his legs. Finally, he asked casually, "You got anything for me?"

Tossing her head, Hope sent droplets of water flying across the shower. "Something's up with this gig, Jim," she said, her voice more serious than he had yet heard it. "I don't know what it is, but something's not right."

He shook off the sensation of guilt creeping up his spine. Instead, Jimmy raised his eyebrows. "Let me guess. Your spidey senses are tingling?"

"Shut up." Hope traded places with him once again, this time with a quick jab to his ribs. "My spidey senses saved your ass in Kiev. And in Vancouver. And that time in Leeds."

"Don't forget San Diego," he reminded her as he rinsed off.

"How could I?" grumbled Hope. She squirted a dollop of conditioner into her hand. "I'm just saying, keep your eyes peeled, okay?"

Relieved that thus far she had not realized that he was the thing that was off, Jimmy smiled down at her, "Yes, ma'am."

He stepped out of the shower while Hope finished rinsing off and reached for the bar of soap and a disposable razor. By the time she emerged five minutes later, wrapped in one of the Carlyle's complimentary bathrobes, Jim was halfway dressed in the clothes that had been left for them in the hotel closet. Hope noted the crisp pleats of his tuxedo trousers with a soft whistle and darted into the closet to retrieve her own garment bag.

Jimmy gave her another fifteen minutes before he joined her in the bathroom. He stared at his reflection in the mirror as he buttoned up his white dress shirt and carefully looped his black silk bow tie around his neck. He pretended not to notice the other reflection in the mirror, but every few seconds his eyes swerved to the side. If they were working this gig together, he might as well appreciate the view.

And what a view it was - the agency had splurged on these covers, and in that slinky green satin gown with the plunging halter neck, the open back that revealed nearly the entire extent of her spine, and the slit halfway up her left thigh, Hope was a vision in green. Her mostly-dry hair was piled into a messy chignon at the back of her head, and she frowned at her reverse image in the glass as she swept crimson across her lips and spread black over her full eyelashes.

Satisfied with her face, the woman dropped the tube of mascara back into the small makeup bag on the counter. She fished inside the bag for a moment and then withdrew a small cardboard package. Humming under her breath, she tugged out four strips of double sided tape and began securing her dress to her skin so that none of her bruises were visible.

"Help," she said commandingly, passing a fifth strip to Jimmy. "Get the one on my shoulder."

He draped the satin over some idiot's thumbprint and kept it in place with the tape, then returned to the bedroom for his tuxedo jacket and his Glock. Sliding his arms into the sleeves, he came back to find Hope standing with one black stiletto propped up against the toilet lid as she strapped her Beretta to the inside of her left thigh. Jimmy leaned up against the doorframe and watched his former partner's movements with the comfort of familiarity. Not for the first time, he wondered if he would truly be capable of carrying this mission through.

Hope glanced over her shoulder to see him standing there. She laughed. "Enjoying the view?"

"Always." It had been five years, he reminded himself. For all the familiarity of the woman's movements, five years had made strangers of them. Chances were, she was actually working for the North Koreans. Chances were, one of them would wrap this night up dead. Oddly enough, the thought was not one that disturbed him. It was all part of the game.

Jimmy cleared his throat. "You ready?"

"Yeah." The woman took one final glance at herself in the mirror, then she looped her arm through his as if it were the most natural thing in the world. "Let's go save us a Falcon."

* * *

**Metropolitan Museum of Art, 8:30 p.m.**

On some level, Jimmy was impressed with how easy this mission was going. The agency-provided attire was the right degree of expensive to allow them to blend in with the non-celebrity end of the guest crowd. They were neither too flashy nor too shabby to stick out, which permitted Hope to flash their invitations and squirm her way past the security guards at the front door without anyone asking Jim to remove his tuxedo jacket or check to see if they were armed. Considering that he had one automatic revolver just above his right hip and another strapped to his left ankle, this was just as well. Hope was packing not only the Beretta on her leg but also a stiletto knife attached to her lower spine with extra-strength double-sided tape. Plus whatever else she had neglected to tell him about.

Once inside the museum, they wandered casually around the outskirts of the central exhibition hall, casually not-glancing at the piece de resistance in the center of the room: the Maltese Falcon. The Falcon, the very same one that had catapulted Bogey to fame and noir to the forefront of American Cinema, had vanished for decades. It was thought to have been pilfered by some stage hand or consumed in the fires that burned down the studio a few months after  _Falcon_  had wrapped production. But then just last month, the ebony bird had turned up in the collection of a Russian oligarch, and now it was being sold to benefit his personal pet charity.

Or so the story went. Hope and Jimmy, not to mention the entirety of the CIA, had their doubts.

Hope gave the Falcon a long, slow look, and then with a light brush of her hand trailing along the length of Jimmy's forearm, she drifted away through the crowd of guests. Jimmy was unsurprised, as she had always been the more charismatic of the two of them. She had been the one to hobnob and lie and finesse her way into whatever locked room or bedroom the agency wanted access to. Jimmy broke through security systems and sometimes bones. Hope broke through people.

He watched her as she walked away, the edges of her shoulder blades pressing out against her tanned skin. The green satin of her dress swayed gently from side to side with the easy movement of her hips. Jimmy wondered briefly if he should offer her an out, if he should give her a chance to explain herself or even to run away before he put a bullet in the back of her head and dropped her body into Oyster Bay where no one would find her. Not that anyone would think to look. Hope, like Sherman marching through Georgia, tended to leave a trail of scorched earth behind her.

Jimmy knew, perhaps, more about her past than any other person, and even then, all he had was a fragment of points along a fuzzy timeline. Foster care. Juvy. A chunk of her late teenagerhood spent under the guidance of Southern California's most dangerous white and blue collar crime boss, known to the FBI, the DEA, the ATF, and the US Marshall Fugitive Task Force only by the moniker, "the Mayor."

The Mayor had been the one to send Hope to college in England, to study and to assist in his international business interests on the side. She stayed abroad after graduation, eluding Interpol as she slipped her way through European borders - until she was caught and flipped by the CIA.

Even at the farm, Hope had been a revelation. She was a decent shot, but despite her small build, it was in hand-to-hand combat where the Mayor's little girl truly shone. She fought desperate, dirty, and smart. She spoke four languages and used her body as easily and dangerously as she did her preferred stiletto knives. Rumor around the agency was that she had almost failed her psych eval, that she was precipitously close to being a psychopath.

Jimmy hadn't minded. He wasn't looking for his fellow agents to be good people, just for them to get their jobs done and to cover his six. And besides, for a while there Hope had been his psychopath.

Now, of course, as those too-familiar hips in green satin slowly sashayed across the room, Jimmy wondered if he hadn't been wrong. Maybe - if he had said something or did something earlier - maybe if he'd pulled in the reins on her instead of just frakking her - maybe they wouldn't be here now.

_Pull it together, Page,_  he reminded himself with a slight toss of his head, snatching a canapé off a passing tray.  _You got a job to do. Falcon first. Then the other thing_.

As he meandered through the crowd, Jimmy noticed one face that kept repeating, almost as if she were following him. A tall, curvy woman in her mid-thirties, with waves of black hair and dark almond-shaped eyes, wearing a slinky black minidress with a sweetheart neckline and sky high heels.

She was always there, hovering just at the corner of his peripheral vision. Jimmy had rounded the giant entrance hall twice already, and still she was there. Hope had long since vanished from his line-of-sight. Not that he was too concerned. Lyons could take care of herself.

He turned suddenly to the left to slip between a frazzled-looking man with the air of an investment banker and his equally frazzled wife in an attempt to shake his new tail. Jimmy covered half the length of the reception hall before the beautiful woman caught up to him. This time, he was ready.

Agent Page spun to confront her, his white teeth bared in a smile that was as full of Midwestern Kansas charm as he could make it. Jimmy had learned a few things from Dean, after all.

"And who might I have the pleasure of meeting?" he drawled, softening his voice with a bit of Southern twang.

To her credit, the woman did not bother to feign innocence. She extended her hand. "Lucy Liu, Assistant Curator of American Film."

Jimmy took her fingers in his. Bending over her hand, he brushed his lips against her knuckles. As he straightened, he introduced himself. "Pleasure to meet you, Lucy. My name's Jim." It was a common enough name. He jerked his chin towards the Falcon inside its glass casing. "What can you tell me about the guest of honor over here?"

Lucy blushed and began reciting the recent history of the Maltese Falcon. The vast majority of her tale was familiar to him, but he listened anyway, in case she knew something he didn't. After ten minutes of light conversation and even lighter flirting, the curator seemed to sense his fading interest, for she spotted a conveniently located friend in the crowd and vanished.

Once she had left, Jimmy resumed his patrol of the reception hall. To his intense frustration, nothing seemed out of place. No one was behaving suspiciously - at any rate no more suspiciously than inebriated celebrities and those with more wealth and champagne than sense tended to. A time or two, he caught a glimpse of someone who looked almost like Hope out of the corner of his eye, but every time it turned out to be some other brunette in a green dress.

Growing suspicious, he fished his work phone out of the pocket of his tuxedo jacket and fired off a quick text message.

_Where r u?_

The response came back almost instantly.

_Had to take care of something downstairs. On my way back._

She'd had to take care of something? Jimmy kept his expression smooth as his thumbs tapped heavily against the phone screen.

_What happened?_

_Tell you when I see you_.

Face blank as glass, the agent slid his cell back into its pocket. His stomach clenched uncomfortably. When she returned, he would have to interrogate her about her little trip into the bowels of the museum before he carried out Henriksen's instructions. That was exactly the sort of behavioral anomaly that the Assistant Director would have been worried about. Jimmy glanced to the right and to the left around the great entrance hall. Still no Hope in sight.

Suddenly, the air above the guests sizzled, and the entire hall was plunged into darkness. A cacophony of shrill screaming erupted all around him. Jimmy instinctively drew his service weapon, but as yet he did not move, momentarily disoriented by the pitch black all around him.

There came a great crash from the center of the room. As nervous anxiety turned to panic, the Gala guests began stampeding in all directions as they searched for the exits and the hope of street lights outside.

Agent Page adjusted his stance so that his feet were a shoulder-width apart and braced himself against the frightened wave of civilians pushing their way past him. As soon as the worst of the press passed, he took one careful step after another in the direction of the crash.

When the lights came back on as abruptly as they had gone out, it was instantly clear that the black-out had been no accident. The elegant glass case in the center of the room had been smashed utterly to pieces, and the priceless Falcon had vanished. Again.

Jimmy was not in the least bit surprised. He tugged his phone loose of his jacket a second time and quickly texted Henriksen to alert him to the situation. Then he called Hope. Twice. She did not pick up.

While he was swearing silently to himself, the busty Asian beauty from earlier approached him from the left and tapped him on the elbow, looking pointedly at the Glock still dangling loosely from his grip. "You got a permit for that?"

At his startled glance, the woman laughed. "Agent Lucy Liu," she introduced herself a second time, her silky voice now tinged with a hint of a British accent. She pulled upwards on her silver necklace to reveal a black ID card that had been resting below the neckline of her gown. "MI6."

Jimmy stowed his phone and showed her his own identification. "Agent Page. CIA."

Agent Liu smiled up at him. "I suppose you were also protecting the Falcon? It looks as though both of our higher ups were keen for the charity auction to proceed without a hitch. Alas." She turned to survey the glass shards littering the floor around them. "I'd call this quite the hitch, wouldn't you?"

The man grunted wordlessly, watching the continued chaos as half the Gala guests struggled to exit the reception hall. The other half were simply standing slack-jawed against the walls.

"Well," said the MI6 agent. She gestured to a trail of glass shards leading away from the Falcon's broken cage. "Shall we go bird hunting together, then?"

Jimmy thought one last time of the silent phone in his pocket and the woman who should have been on the other end. But finding the Falcon took precedence over locating Hope. So he gave Agent Liu another of his charming smiles and nodded at the broken glass. "After you."

Without much speaking, they followed the glass shards across the reception hall, past the entry to the first-floor galleries, and into a little-known staircase. From there, the trail led downwards, until they found themselves moving from the basement into the subbasement and then into the steam tunnels deep beneath the museum.

As they moved silently past great pipes at hip height and shoulder height, Jimmy wondered if it was worth checking his phone again. He had not felt it buzz, not once. Wherever Hope was, she had gone past his ability to help her.

Twenty minutes into the search, the CIA agent cleared his throat. "So, if your guys and our guys were both so focused on protecting our little lost bird, how come we weren't working together from the start?" It was something that had been bothering him ever since the well-endowed beauty had flashed her shiny ID card.

Agent Liu glanced over her shoulder at him and shrugged, her dark eyes gleaming in the half-light of the steam tunnels. "I don't know," she admitted. "But maybe it had something to do with the whispers."

Jimmy raised an eyebrow. "Whispers?"

"Rumor has it - had it - that a CIA agent was present when the Falcon was discovered in Ivan Ilych's estate. Rumor also had it that that same agent was - oh, how do you Americans say it? - Playing the field?"

The man swallowed. If his gut was anything to go by, Henriksen hadn't been the only one telling tales. "Rumor give this agent a name?" he asked nonchalantly.

"No." Liu shook her head. "Only specifics we ever got was that it was a woman. Brunette, according to most of the rumors. Although hair color doesn't mean much in our line of work."

"Can't disagree with that."

Traveling once again in silence, the agents moved quickly along the tunnel to where it forked into a 'T'. Jimmy jerked his head to the right, and they turned together. They had made it perhaps fifteen feet down their new route when a figure stepped out of the blackness between the tunnels, and they found themselves staring down the barrel of a Beretta.

Despite the gloom, Jimmy recognized his partner. His pulse accelerated, and the last dregs of his optimism crumbled into ashes. For clutched in the crook of Hope's elbow, was the ebony statue of the Falcon itself.

"Where'd you get the bird, Hope?" He tried to sound calm, but all that came out was suspicion. Henriksen had been right. Damn the Assistant Director to hell, but he had been right.

Hope's brown eyes darted from Jimmy to the woman at his side. "Who's she?" she demanded as her revolver swung to point at Agent Liu.

"She's MI6," Jimmy said shortly. "Hope, the bird -"

Now she looked back to her partner. "I got it from the guys who stole it. C'mon." She tilted her head further down the steam tunnel. "Let's go, Jim."

"Sure thing. In just a second, Hope. First, uh, why don't you let me carry the Falcon. In case something comes up. You're better at hand-to-hand."

The Beretta reversed position until it was aimed solidly at his chest. "No," said Hope. For the first time, Jimmy noticed a still-bleeding cut high up on her cheekbone. "We move together, but the bird stays with me."

Jimmy sighed, and the muzzle of his weapon slowly raised itself from the floor to point directly at his partner. To his left, Agent Liu did the same. "I'm afraid I'm going to have to insist."

For a long minute, the partners hesitated, neither of them moving as they stared each other down. Brown eyes locked on green, and Jimmy hardly dared to breathe. This - now - this was his moment to act.

He darted in, and Hope twisted to the side, curving her body to keep the Falcon further out of his reach even as she continued to aim the Beretta squarely at his heart. Jimmy ignored the threat of the hand gun. He pressed forward, bringing his left wrist up to smack against the stock of the Beretta and knocking it loose from her hand.

At the same instant, Agent Liu rushed them from the other side. Jimmy landed a couple of quick jabs to Hope's solar plexus. The rapid-fire blows were enough to distract her for a half-second, but that half-second was all that it took for the MI6 agent to slide her hands along the smooth surface of the Falcon and jerk it free from the other woman's grasp.

"What the f-" But before Hope could finish her sentence, an arm thick as a tree limb and sturdy as an iron bar locked around her waist and brought her toppling to the ground.

With the Falcon safe, Jimmy lost no more time in tackling his former partner. She was thrashing beneath him on the concrete, struggling to reach for the dagger strapped to the small of her back. Agent Page grabbed her by the shoulders and slammed her head down against the concrete. He paid no attention to the entreaties and imprecations spilling from her lips.

"Jim, listen. Stop. Please. You have to -  _listen._ "

But now his hands had settled at the base of her throat, and her words faded away into whimpers. Jimmy squeezed carefully, and the woman's brown eyes grew wild with panic. She clawed at his wrists in vain.

Ultimately, thirty seconds was all that it took for the CIA agent to subside into unconsciousness. Her former partner rose to his feet. Grabbing her by the upper arms, he dragged Hope away from the pipes and over to the other side of the tunnel, where the high temperatures of the steam running through the pipes could not burn her. Jimmy propped the woman up against the cinderblocks and fumbled in his pockets until he found the plastic zip-tie he was looking for. He bound her hands at the wrists and then hunted for a second zip-tie to restrain her ankles as well.

_I'm sorry, boss,_  he thought momentarily, sparing Hope one final glance before he turned back to Agent Liu, who was retrieving the Beretta from the cold concrete.  _Couldn't put her down. Not enough evidence_.

Aloud, he said, "Now what?"

Agent Liu narrowed her pretty eyes at him. "Do you think it's safe to leave her there? What if she escapes?"

Jimmy chuckled low in his throat. "She won't be coming round for a while. I'll come back for her once we get the Falcon back up to the reception hall and hand it over to the museum staff."

Every word of it was a lie. Hope would be awake in ten minutes - maybe less. And as for her staying put, Jimmy hadn't forgotten the stiletto taped to her spine. As soon as she opened her eyes, Hope would be twisting and contorting herself to reach that knife. Once she got her fingers on it, she'd be free in seconds. Jimmy only hoped that she would recognize the chance that he had given her and run.

If she didn't, if she showed that dark head of hers again . . . Well, Jimmy had the stones to fail Henriksen once by letting his old partner survive. It was more than his life was worth to fail a second time.

"All right, then," said Agent Liu, apparently taking his words at face value. "Shall we return to the Gala?"

"Yeah." His Glock pointed once more towards the ground, Jimmy followed the MI6 agent back into the dark from which they had come. They retraced their steps back to the 'T,' took a left, and continued towards the main underbelly of the museum.

As the minutes crawled by in the darkness, Jimmy wrestled with the uncomfortable feeling that by trying to betray neither Henriksen nor Lyons, he had effectively betrayed both. He had seen no alternative. When push came to shove, he couldn't finish the job. Even when faced with the blatant evidence of the missing Falcon in Hope's arms and no good explanations of how it had come to be there, Jimmy lacked the stomach to do his duty. He could do almost anything in the service of his country, but he could not do this. He could not kill her.

_Why couldn't he kill her_? The thought tugged at the fraying edges of his mind. He had killed so many people for the Stars and Stripes. Some of them had probably even been innocent. But he could not kill Hope Lyons, not when she was the one last fragile thread tying him back to the man he had once been, back before his life was completely steeped in death. Hope was the one thing linking him still with Dean, the man he had murdered in the days between receiving his new commission and joining the Farm.

Besides, he had loved her once. He hadn't intended to. After he had put his life as Dean and the memories that accompanied it to the sword, Jimmy had fully intended never to love anything ever again. And then he met Hope. Wild and clever and dangerous and fearless and beautiful, beautiful Hope.

By the time they had completed their first two months in the field, Jimmy had reluctantly acknowledged that he was in over his head with the brunette agent. He had not wanted to love her, but now that he did, Jimmy had no idea how on earth he was supposed to not love her.

It had been infatuation. He realized that now. An infatuated passion that soon faded into appreciation and respect. Maybe not love at all. Still, unless she shot first, he was incapable of pulling the trigger on her.

Five minutes passed in his uncomfortable reverie, and then a cold sensation slid over the CIA agent, causing the hairs to rise on the nape of his neck. They were being watched. Jimmy looked back over his shoulder, just in time to watch two tall, broad-shouldered figures emerging from the darkness.

"Watch out!" he called ahead to Agent Liu, moving between her and the newcomers. "Run!" he commanded. "I've got this."

"Do you?" asked the amused feminine British voice behind him.

The heavy stock of Hope's Beretta slammed into the back of his skull, and all Jimmy could see was blackness.

* * *

He woke to find a familiar brunette slapping him repeatedly across the face. Cheeks stinging, Jimmy blinked hazily, and the room around him swam into view, illuminated to blurry perfection by the faint light from a cell phone. Someone had cuffed him up to a ladder in a dark brick alley. A muddy alley, he reflected, glancing down to the red bricks beneath his feet. He looked upwards to see a brick sky.

Jimmy blinked again, and his senses became a little more clear. He could hear something now - something other than the irritated huffs of Hope as she ran dirt-stained hands over his already-ruined tuxedo, checking him for injuries. He could hear the rush of water. The man took a deep breath in through his nose and choked. It smelled  _horrible_. Like that time that he and Hope blew up a trailer park septic tank back in Arkansas.

Screw alley. He was in a sewer. And the water was rising now, rushing in to the channel where they stood from a handful of steel sluice gates maybe fifty yards down. Soon, Jimmy imagined that he would be able to hear the wet thwapping sounds of the gummy sharks which were known to eat city workers who ventured down this far to check on the sewer lines. Or maybe it was giant alligators. Jimmy was never quite sure which rumor to believe.

"Shut up about those damn sharks," Hope growled through a mouthful of bobby pins. Huh. He must have thought that last bit out loud.

"What -"

Hope cut him off, uninterested in whatever it was that Jimmy had to say for himself. "So your little girlfriend wasn't interested in sharing her toys, huh," she said grimly, twisting to the side to get a better look at his handcuffs. "Surprise, surprise."

"She wasn't my girlfriend," Jimmy snapped back at her. "She was -"

"She  _wasn't_  MI6. I've seen her around a time or two. She works for the Koreans."

Jimmy stared at her in mild horror. "I thought  _you_  worked for the Koreans."

Hope jerked back on her heels, and the bobby pin in her hand fell to the sewer floor. "Who told you that?" she asked darkly.

He looked down to where the bobby pin had disappeared. No point in trying to keep secrets now. "Henriksen," he admitted quietly to the ground.

"Figures." The woman snorted. She pulled another pin out of her hair. "Let me guess. He told you that I've been playing a double-agent ever since our little escapade back in Kiev and that it was your job to clean up the mess by putting a bullet in my pretty head. That right?"

"How -"

"Because he told me the same thing about you, dumbass."

"Why - "

Shaking her head, Hope leaned over and got to work picking Jimmy's cuffs. "Turns out it's kinda simple," she answered shortly, the word almost muffled into the smudged fabric of his jacket.

"Oh?"

"I've been keeping my ear to the ground these last few years. While you've been running around proving your loyalty to the bosses upstairs, they've been clutching their pearls and panicking about what we did in the Ukraine. That it's gonna get out. That the agency's role will be revealed. It's been burning a hole in the back of their brains. So I guess they've decided to put a literal hole in the backs of ours."

_Kiev_. Of course it had been Kiev. It had been the last mission of their time together, and Jimmy could hardly remember the details now. He had drowned them in whiskey, walled them up like Amontillado, until nothing but blurry outlines remained. He and Hope had gone in to kill people, and they had killed the exact people that headquarters ordered them to, but neither of them had liked it.

Why hadn't they liked it? Jimmy racked his brains as Hope fidgeted with the bobby pin.  _Oh_. They had been ordered to kill children. One of the last few lines that he and Hope had joked about never having to cross. And then the suits upstairs forced them to cross it.

His memories were clearer on the aftermath of the mission. Afterwards, when everything was done and he and Hope were on the retrieval plane back to their home base in London, they had said frak it. Literally.

Despite all the cameras on board, despite the presence of their new handler - some annoying dude called Walker who was subbing in for a few months while Ellen was on maternity leave - despite knowing the consequences of being caught, he and Hope had decided to join the mile-high club in the plane bathroom. Loudly. Noisily. Until they weren't even touching, just looking at each other and slamming their backs into opposite walls of the bathroom to make as much of a ruckus as possible, practically daring Walker to open the door and catch them violating the fraternizing regulations.

At that point, they would have done almost anything to get out of Europe, to get away from active duty for a hot minute or two. They might be vicious sons of bitches, but they weren't child killers. But then the agency had taken even that away from them.

" _Oh."_ Jimmy finally said out loud.

"Yeah. From what I've been able to figure out, the suits aren't convinced that either of us are gonna keep our months shut about those kids. There."

With a gentle click, the handcuffs finally snapped open. Jimmy pulled his wrists free and rubbed at them halfheartedly. Already, the rushing water had climbed up past his knees. "So . . ." he felt embarrassingly slow. "So then you weren't trying to steal the Falcon, were you?"

Hope fished her stiletto dagger out of nowhere and began quickly slicing away at the skirts of her emerald dress until the fabric barely came to mid-thigh. "Of course I wasn't trying to steal it, you idiot." She rolled her eyes. "Who do you think this whole auction was set up by in the first place?"

Jimmy frowned at her. "You said you weren't working for the North Koreans."

"I'm not." The woman dropped the beautiful satin into the filthy water, but she kept the stiletto in her hand. "In case we meet any of those gummy sharks you were so worried about," she added, seeing the man's gaze fixated on the steely blade.

"If not Korea, then who?"

"Let's just say that finding the right home for the Falcon - for the right price, of course - was one of my last projects from university. You might almost call it my thesis," she grinned.

Jimmy groaned. A reference to her education could only mean one man. "The Mayor, Hope? You're working for him again? I mean, that is a lot more your style than North Korea, but still - "

"Not doing anything illegal," Hope pointed out. "Just paying back some old favors." She took a step towards another ladder a few feet further down the sewer tunnel.

When her former partner did not immediately follow, the woman turned and gave him a sharp look. "Water's rising, Jim. What's it gonna be: me or the gummy sharks?"

"You." Jimmy reached for her outstretched hand, clasping his fingers tight about her wrist and allowing her to drag him up the ladder after her. "Let's get the hell out of here."

* * *

**January 23rd, 2016, Lebanon, Kansas, 5:45 a.m.**

"Dean."

His brother's voice jolted him back from whatever insane funhouse land his subconscious had sent him to this time. Dean opened gritty eyes. He could faintly make out the outline of his brother's concerned face in the dim light streaming in from the hallway.

"What is it, Sam?" he groaned, longing to roll back over and tug the blankets over his head. For Sam to dispense with Cold War tactics and come into his room, though, this had to be serious.

Sure enough, the next words out of his little brother's mouth were, "We got a case."

"Kay." Groggy, Dean pushed himself up into a sitting position and swung his legs over the side of the bed. "Give me fifteen."

"Yeah." Sam was already retreating back towards the neutral zone of the hallway. "Sure."

And the Cold War was back. Grumbling to himself, Dean glared at his laptop, which was still perched on the far side of his mattress, the screen dark. He thought again of the bizarreness of his dream and shook his head to clear it. Secret agents and gummy sharks? That was the absolute last time he let a ghost talk him into mixing Swedish fish with James Bond.


	7. Moments in the Woods

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Halloween! I have returned! Admittedly, updates are still going to be fairly spread apart at the moment, but I've worked through most of my plotting issues and lack of motivation. Also, BrokenShardss made an absolutely fantastic GIF-set inspired by Sync and Ramble On. 
> 
> Check them out here: http://janetmontgomerys.tumblr.com/post/166929120395/synchronicity-ramble-on-by-authoressinhiding

 

* * *

**February 3rd, 2016, Lebanon, Kansas, 4:25 p.m.**

"Sam?" The voice on the end of the line bubbled with sunshine. A faint blaring sounded in the background as someone began tuning an orchestra. First, the whispered reedy whine of the oboe – and then the flutes above it, the clarinets nestled beside it, and the low hum of the strings beneath.

"Hey, Lily." Although he knew his brother was safely out of the bunker picking up groceries and putting gas in the Impala, Sam risked a cautious look at his locked bedroom door before continuing. "You at the theatre?" he asked over the tuba currently drowning out the other sounds.

"Yeah. Tech rehearsal starts in an hour. Opening night's next week. You and Dean still – ?"

"Oh, we're still." If he was being honest with himself, the prospect of a road trip to Cleveland with his incredibly cantankerous sibling was pretty much the last thing that Sam wanted to do these days. But an evening at a musical to support their friend was the only olive branch they had between them at the moment. "Thanks for the tickets, by the way."

"You know me," teased the actress. "Anything for a pretty face."

Sam laughed a little uncomfortably. He had never been a hundred percent sure how serious Becka and Lily meant their flirtation. He countered with, "You mean me, or Dean?"

"Both," she replied without hesitation. "So what's the sitch, Sampson?"

"Sam," he corrected her automatically. "Can I – can I ask you to do me a favor?"

"Depends on the favor," said Lily.

He had set himself up for that one. "Fair enough. Anyways, thing is, something's . . . something's wrong with Dean."

To the woman's credit, she did not immediately fire back with a sarcastic, "Again?" or worse yet, "Still?" Instead, she took clipping steps away from the orchestra, the sound of scales fading to be replaced by her heels echoing on a hard floor and into his ear. "What's going on?" she asked once the music was merely a muted hum. Half of the sunshine and all the flirtation had disappeared from her tone.

"I don't know," Sam admitted. "He's been off lately – more than usual," he added before she could say anything else. "I mean, something's been wrong with my brother ever since last February. He – it was like he went away when Faith died. Kinda like what happened when we lost Dad. Only this time he didn't snap out of it. To be honest, I'm still not sure if I've ever gotten my brother back. For two people who weren't a thing – "

"They were a thing," Lily interrupted him firmly. "Let's call a spade a spade. It was a weirdly undefined thing, to be sure, but they were a thing. Just so you know, she was practically as bad when he died. A bit better with the Purgatory stuff, but Faith was still a mess with a capital 'M.' And I say that as someone who saw a lot of it up close."

The hunter exhaled. "Yeah. Point is, he's gotten even stranger since Christmas. It's . . . hard to describe. But he's off. Spends more time in his room, takes off on hunts on his own a lot more often. Sometimes we can be in the same room, and it's like he doesn't even know I'm there."

In a gentle voice, the blonde said, "And you're sure it's not due to the, uh, friction you two have been having lately?"

Another fair question. Sam swallowed. "I'm sure." He paused, uncertain how to address the fear that he had hardly been able to put into words inside his head. "I . . . This is going to sound out there, but I feel like . . . well, somehow or other this involves Faith. He's still grieving – or maybe he hasn't even started. He just can't let her go."

"Neither of them were very good at that, were they?" said Lily with a touch of nostalgia. Then, more decisively, "I'm in. Whatever you need. Beck will be, too. What did you have in mind?"

"Not much. I just . . . It would be good to have a fresh pair of eyes on him again. Eyes that aren't mine."

"You got it, Sam," she promised. "We'll get to the bottom of this. One way or another."

* * *

**February 3rd, 2016, Cleveland, Ohio, 4:47 p.m.**

"Hey. You got a sec?"

"Sure. Break time already?"

"Less director notes than we expected. But I've got some scene work in ten, so I won't be home until late. Anyway, got a call from Paul Bunyan this afternoon."

"Oh? They still coming?"

"Yep. I reserved more seats though. Need you to start up the Twilight bark."

"The what?"

"The bonfires. The semaphore towers. The Bat-Signal. We've got invitations to send out, and then we're going to need to start hitting people with the peer pressure."

"Je comprends. Who?"

"Mustache-free Magnum PI. Sid Vicious. Blue Steel. Maybe Star Lord. Just don't mention him to Magnum."

"Got it. Do we have to speak in code names?"

"There a problem, Lady Tesla?"

"You do remember that I don't do that kind of engineering, right? Little Miss Muffet?"

"Seriously, that's the best you've got? I'm devastated."

"I'll work on it."

"See you tonight?"

"If you get home before midnight, Barbra Streisand . . . Better?"

"Better."

* * *

**February 13, 2016, Cleveland, Ohio, 5:00 p.m.**

Maybe this had not been the best of ideas, Sam thought ruefully as the Impala cut to a silent halt outside the narrow brownstone townhouse where Lily and Becka still lived. The same townhouse where Faith had stayed, for a time. Becka had requested (demanded, really) that they come a few hours before the show to grab dinner. Lily would be in last minute rehearsals, but Becka's fiance - Jim? James? Jarvis? - would be there. For the life of him, Sam could not remember the man's name.

Dean had his reluctantly cheerful face on again, the younger Winchester noted while his brother unbuckled his seat belt in one quick jerking movement and slid out of the driver's seat in the next. The one when he was pretending to be in a decent mood, but it wouldn't take much provocation for that mood to slide sour in half an instant. The phrase 'hair trigger' was an understatement when it came to his brother's emotions these days.

Still, at least he had come. And although the drive from Kansas had been uncomfortable, the unspoken tension between them eased somewhat as the miles passed. Dean's driving had seemed a hair more paranoid than usual - he was constantly checking the rearview mirror to see if any cars were tailing them. After turning around to look over his shoulder a few times and not noticing any suspiciously recurring cars, Sam gave it a rest. If paranoia was what it took for Dean to cope with this trip, then Sam could endure that.

He followed his older brother up the walk to the maroon front door, the soles of his black loafers scuffing along the dirty concrete. Although it wasn't quite yet five, the sun had already begun to set, and the cloudy sky was tinged an unfriendly violet. The hunter stood off to his brother's left as the older man knocked once, sharp and loud, on the door.

"Coming!" came the muffled exclamation from somewhere on the other side of the wood.

The corners of Dean's mouth quirked upwards in the ghost of a smile. "So," he said quietly, nodding at the door, "you want to give this Jim kid the talk? Or you want me to do it?"

It was barely the olive branch he had hoped for - much more like an olive twig - but Sam would take it. "Which talk?" he mused, also in a soft tone. "The one about the monsters?"

"Nah." Dean shook his head. "The one where if he hurts her, we'll gut him."

"Pretty sure Lily's already given him that one."

"Yeah . . ." His brother's voice trailed away into silence, and then he added, "Or maybe Faith did. Becka was dating him then. Before."

There was no need for Sam to ask what his brother meant by 'before.' "Probably," he agreed with a smile of his own.

At that moment, the maroon door swung open abruptly, and a familiar brunette head poked out into the frosty evening air. "Evening, gents," said Becka with more than her usual pep. She had dressed up for the night at the theatre in tall black boots and a form-fitting kelly green dress that came to just above her knees. A solitaire diamond gleamed on her left ring finger. Her gray eyes darted from one Winchester to the other, taking in the fed suits visible beneath their heavy overcoats. "Well, well, well," she grinned. "Dean's even wearing a tie."

Dean huffed and rolled his eyes in what the others recognized as mock irritation. "You gonna let us in?" he asked shortly. "Or are we gonna spend all night freezing our asses off out here?"

Becka rolled her eyes right back at him. "Come complain to me when you start spending your nights patrolling along Lake Erie in subzero weather." Her grin widening, she pulled the front door all the way open and stepped aside to allow the hunters in from the cold.

They stamped the snow and mud off their shoes on the welcome mat and then crossed over the threshold. Sam shrugged out of his overcoat and hung it on one of the wooden pegs set high on the left-hand wall. His brother did the same, tilting his head back and inhaling deeply through his nose.

"Is that . . ." He sniffed again. "Is that a  _pot roast_?"

Becka nodded. Her gleaming smile reminded Sam of the eighteen-year-old who had once co-ambushed him outside of a college dive bar to give him the Slayer talk. It was the same grin that she wore whenever she and Lily devolved into blatantly checking him out, and only slightly less excited than her surprise Christmas dinner smile. It was infectious and good-natured with only the slightest hint of scheming. A sliver of foreboding crept up the hunter's spine.

"Figured you'd be hungry," the brunette Slayer was saying cheerfully as Dean moved past her down the hallway toward the living room and the kitchen beyond. "And I guess you could consider it a peace offering," she added in a much softer voice, now speaking to the hunter's back.

Sam's foreboding grew. "Beck," he hissed just above a whisper. "What have you done?"

Before she could answer, Dean came storming back down the carpeted hall, dragging a sandy-haired man behind him by the collar of his brown bomber jacket. He pushed the man in front of him with an abrupt shove, his eyebrows narrowing and his green eyes dark with anger.

"What the hell . . ." he growled, then cut himself off with a sharp shake of his head. Dean began again, this time managing to cool his temper into something that more closely resembled irritation. "What the hell is Andrew doing here?"

* * *

The evening devolved after that, especially once the doorbell rang ten minutes later and three of the Winchesters' not-so-favorite people - two vampires and a scientist turned ancient god turned scientist again - walked in. Sam watched his brother gradually progress from roast-inspired enthusiasm to aggravation and finally to sullen resignation until Dean was sitting at a corner of the dining room table and downing mashed potatoes and gravy as if there would be no tomorrow.

At least - and this was to Sam's utter relief - Dean remained civil and actually spoke to people. Sam would take that. He would take any form of engagement from his brother. Trading sarcastic asides with Spike at Angel's expense and maintaining a surface level discussion about crime in Cleveland with Becka's lanky lawyer fiancé might not have been much, but they were miles above the terse exchanges that had characterized conversation in the bunker the past few weeks. After the first disastrous interaction, Dean ignored Andrew and his bomber jacket completely. All things considered, that was likely for the best.

When it came time to adjourn to the theater, Becka insisted on carpooling. Dean took that bit in his teeth and ran with it.

"Great," he said with a wide smile that did not reach the cold in his eyes. "You and James can ride with me, then. I've still got some questions for him."

"This the interrogation you were warning me about?" James asked his fiancée dryly as he cleared the final set of plates from the table. "The one that you said was going to be worse than your father's?"

Laughing, the engineer pushed her own chair back and began collecting water glasses, starting with Fred's. "That's because it will be," she grinned, and she set her free hand on the hunter's shoulder for a brief moment.

"Sign me up for this," said Spike, fiddling in the pockets of his omnipresent black duster for a pack of Camels. "Sampson, you can ride with ol' Captain Forehead here. I'm callin' shotgun."

Dean gave the cigarettes a dark sidelong glance. "Put 'em up, Sparky. No one smokes in my baby." He rose from the table and swaggered into the kitchen. "Come on, Jim," he said in a voice so cheerful it made Sam wince. That was Dean's good cop voice. Nothing good ever happened to the people his brother used that particular voice on. "Let's go warm up the car."

With a graceful shrug, James flicked off the sink faucet. "All right," he agreed. "Becka, love, you have the tickets?"

"They're at will-call," replied the brunette. She made a shooing gesture with her hands. "Go ahead. Spike and I'll be along in a minute."

"I'll be along  _now_ ," corrected the vampire, and he joined the two men in the front hallway. His gleeful voice drifted back along the air to the kitchen. "No way I'm missing out on this."

Becka waited until the front door had closed solidly behind them before she turned to the four guests still seated at the dining room table. "Well?"

Swiveling in his seat, Sam sighed. "You could have warned me, you know," he pointed out with a nod of his head at the others. "About the welcoming party."

"I reminded her that Dean doesn't like surprises," Andrew cut in before Becka could reply. He fiddled with his dinner fork, twirling it over and around in his hands. "Unless they're strippers. It's canon."

"Stop." The hunter held up his hand. "Don't mention those books." He shuddered. "Just don't."

"Gotta say, I was expecting something much worse than this," mused Angel. He lifted his wine glass from the table and swirled the thick, dark red liquid inside, then took a long, slow sip. It was porcine, but pig would have to do for the moment. "He seems to be functioning fine. Not quite the disaster you described on the phone, Becka."

"Dean's  _not_  fine," snapped Sam without bothering to censor himself.

The vampire leaned back in his chair and raised his eyebrows, the goblet of blood still clasped in his hand. "I didn't say he was." He glanced briefly at the faces of the others: Andrew, who was following every word with rapt attention; Fred, with the slight frown of concentration that usually meant that she was listening to Illyria; Becka, tugging at the ruched waistline of her dress and looking uncertain for the first time all evening.

Angel exhaled, a habit he had never quite managed to kick in centuries of undeath. "Okay, so your brother's not fine. Honestly, no one in this room is fine - and they haven't been - not for a long time, anyway. Being 'fine' has never been a requirement for fighting the powers of darkness," he pointed out with more than a trace of irony.

"I get that," interjected the hunter. He gave Becka a sharp look. "Trust me - no one understands better than me just how not-fine Dean can be. But right now, that's not the issue. Something else is wrong. Something different. And I don't know what."

"I should go," the Slayer said quietly, retrieving her houndstooth peacoat from the back of the couch. "I need to go rescue James. Spike and Dean will eat him alive if I leave the three of them alone for long enough. Just one of those two would be bad. But together?" She shivered dramatically. Then, with a pleading glance to Sam, she finished, "We'll . . . we'll all talk later?"

* * *

**7:30 p.m.**

"You and little brother not getting along these days?" Spike wondered artlessly. They had just dropped Becka and a somewhat shell-shocked James off at the box office and were now parking the Impala in the behemoth concrete garage situated behind the Performing Arts Center. Despite the shadows of the parking garage, his vampiric sight was more than sufficient for him to maintain casual surveillance on the human sitting next to him. It was, after all, the prevailing reason for this transatlantic field trip.

The hunter glowered. It was a very impressive glower. Nearly as impressive as Angel's. "You noticed."

"Hard not to," commented the vampire. His eyes darted even further to the side, to better observe the stony countenance of the man behind the wheel. Still casual, he continued, "Bigfoot being a prat again?"

In the silence that followed, Spike could almost hear the man thinking, his mouth twisting into a grimace as he debated whether or not to answer the question. He waited for the hunter to find his words. There was no point in rushing him. The man would talk when he was ready.

"Sam's an asshat sometimes," admitted Dean after a long pause. He pulled into a narrow space between two minivans and popped open the car door, effectively ending that line of conversation. Squaring his shoulders against the chill wind whipping through the garage, he set out across two lines of parked cars for the elevator that would take them back down to the ground floor and the door into the Connor Palace theater.

Spike was forced to scuttle after him, catching up just as Dean jerked open the glass doors to the small red-carpeted foyer and the elevators with their gleaming steel doors.

As the vampire readjusted his duster, Dean asked in an emotionless voice, "So what did Lil and Beck promise to get you all down here?"

The blond feigned surprise. "No idea what you're talking about, mate."

"Right," scoffed the hunter, and he shoved his hands into the pockets of his overcoat. His green eyes were somewhere between snapping and sullen. "Cause, you know, you don't strike me as the musical theater type. Drew?" He pulled a face. "God, yes. Fred? Kinda. Angel? He might be an opera guy. Not Broadway."

Clearing his throat, Spike said, "He goes in for ballet, actually."

"No sh-t?" An expression that the vampire thought might have been amusement briefly flashed across Dean's face. "Huh. Yeah, I can see that. You, uh, you know much about this show? This Woods thing? Lily mentioned fairy tales."

The musical itself was a far safer topic than anything they had broached so far. The vampire nodded, deciding to run with it. "Something like that. Lily's doing Rapunzel?" he tested, curious to see what the response would be.

"Cinderella," Dean corrected him almost absentmindedly as he punched the button for the lobby. "If she made any more pumpkin metaphors, I was gonna have to block her number."

Spike lifted his scarred eyebrow. "Bit extreme?"

The hunter shrugged. "Not really. She was threatening to start in on squash next."

After taking a moment to imagine what horrors Lily could concoct where vegetables were concerned, Spike said, "That . . . doesn't sound good."

"Mmmph. And you don't want to know what she was saying about the zucchini. Trust me," Dean added as the elevator doors opened to the lobby and they were caught up in the colorful rush of theatre-goers.

* * *

**8:15 p.m.**

_He's a very smart Prince.  
_ _He's a Prince who prepares._

Deep within the consciousness of Fred Burkle, Illyria allowed the words of the soprano's song to rush over her. It was a clever spectacle. She would give it at least that much. The words were clever, the music clever, and the rushing of the mortals to and fro on stage as the characters strove to fulfill their utterly mortal desires was quite in keeping with the desperate selfishness of most mud monkeys. It was all very fitting and surprisingly diverting.

 _This is more than just malice._  
_Better stop and take stock_  
_While you're standing here stuck  
_ _On the steps of the palace_

Equally diverting was the soap opera of turmoil in which the Burkle had found herself this evening. Illyria waited for the human to sweep her eyes to the side, and the ancient demon took in the row of concentrating faces in the scant light reflecting back from the stage. Andrew on her far left, then Spike next to him, then Angel, then the Burkle herself. Next came the Slayer's man friend, the Slayer, the Lucifer vessel, and finally the Michael sword on the end of the row.

Fred looked at the hunter for a little longer than was strictly necessary, and the Old One took advantage to survey the Michael sword. This was the first time that she had been in his company in over a year, and the change was startling. She had some slender ability in sensing the emotions of mud monkeys. It had been a useful skill, back when she needed to sift the potential enemies from among her devotees.

Now, constrained within a mortal shell, only a fragment of her former skill remained, but Illyria could still sense something. The Michael sword was bleeding inside - a constant slow trickle of pain and grief that flared briefly whenever he took his eyes off the stage.

_All right what do you want?  
Have to make a decision._

But there was something else lurking beneath his misery, a flavor that was older and darker and headier than anything humans had ever produced. It felt faintly familiar. Momentarily forgetting herself, Illyria seized the reins as the Burkle began to look away. She jerked the woman's head back to the right in order to observe the hunter for a half-second longer.

 _Stop that,_  came the peeved thought of the Burkle.  _We made a deal. You gave your word_.

 _I lied._  She had not intended to lie. When Illyria had first made the compromise, three days of behaving in exchanged for a week in control with only the blond half-breed around to supervise her (as easily slipped of a leash as any that she could imagine), she had had every intention of keeping it. But now . . .

_Illyria. This is my favorite song. You can check the Winchesters out at intermission._

As if she would ever stoop so low as to leer at a human for no purposes other than entertainment!  _Something has changed in the older one_ , she thought back.

_Of course he has. Faith died._

Was that all they thought of? These humans and their obsession with romance and connection and themselves. And did Winifred Burkle really believe that she, Illyria, would require education in these matters? It had been she, and not the Burkle, who observed as grief destroyed the one called Wesley, after all.

 _But then how can you know_  
_Who you are till you know  
_ _What you want, which I don't_

Illyria kept her snort of irritation to herself. Yes, the Michael sword was a surly mess. She did not need arcane skill to divine that. It was obvious even to the Burkle's eyes. But there was something more.

 _Wait no thinking it through_  
_Things don't have to collide_  
_I know what my decision is  
_ _Which is not to decide_

The Old One reluctantly subsided into her usual corner, lapsing into the meditative state that she occupied whenever she grew bored of Winifred's mortal affairs. Just before she became completely ensconced in her own thoughts, she was struck by two things at roughly the same time.

First, recognition crashed over her like a rain of cold water. She knew now what that familiar component of the mystery flavor lurking around the Michael sword had been. It was many things, and few of them good, but mixed in was  _Her_. She who was from the beginning and She who would be forever. Somehow,  _She_  had a part to play in the darkness that continued to grow over the mortal's head.

The second thing was less impressive, but far more amusing. As the soprano's song finally ended, the Michael sword began to applaud with the rest of the audience. For a moment, his grief lifted, and in its place Illyria felt a second echo of things lost. The Winchester was now marked by three of those who were thought to be no more. An archangel,  _Her_ , and – ah, of course. The Slayer had not gone far away after all.

Smirking to herself, Illyria faded into the oblivion of her reflections. The humans and half-breeds were willful fools who did not see. Very well. She alone would be prepared when the oncoming storm descended.

 _And I've learned something, too._  
_Something I never knew  
_ _On the steps of the palace!_

In her self-imposed prison, the Old One laughed. Cold and desolate, it rang through the silence of her thoughts.  _Fools_.

* * *

**9:30 p.m.**

"This isn't the end?" Dean complained as the Narrator announced intermission and the house lights flooded the room once again. Two seats down from Becka, he stood up from his seat and shifted his weight from foot to foot, fidgeting. Even with his characteristic scruffy appearance softened by the FBI suit, he loomed uncomfortably large, and Becka raised a hand to her eyes to soften the glare of the electric overhead light as she tilted her head to look up at him.

Seemingly unaware of his audience, the hunter continued to grumble, "How much more is there of this thing?" He began listing key plot points off on his fingers. "Cinderella's got her man, the baker dude has his baby, the kid stole the goose - everyone's got their happy ending."

"That's the point," Andrew pointed out helpfully, leaning out past Spike to join in the conversation. "The story doesn't end when everyone gets what they want. That's why we have another Act."

A vein thrummed against the skin of Dean's forehead. "Mother of - " The hunter sprang further away from his chair and into the aisle. "I'm going to get a beer. You want anything, Sam?"

The younger Winchester glanced up at his brother. "Nah. I'm good."

"Becka?"

"Also good." Releasing her fiancé's hand, the engineer clambered carefully over Sam's legs. James could take care of himself for ten minutes or so. Especially since Angel was there to keep an eye on Spike. "I'll come with you, though."

As they walked up the gently sloping floor towards the doors at the rear of the theater, the Slayer smoothed the sides of her green dress down against her tights. Taking a deep breath, she gathered her courage and then began to apologize. "Sorry for making this a surprise," she said softly, following in the hunter's wake as he carved a swathe through the chattering crowd. "Sam's worried, you know."

"He's got a funny way of showing it," Dean grumbled, but he slowed down until they could walk side by side, their elbows knocking against each other every few steps.

"Dean," she started again with more feeling.

"Beck." He stopped her. "When's the wedding?"

Reluctantly accepting defeat, the Slayer shrugged. She slipped her hand around his elbow and held on to the hunter's bicep. It was a weak form of retaliation, but it was the only one she had. "End of summer? I'm not sure. You and Sam should come, though."

They joined the line for concessions. To her surprise, Dean made no move to shrug her off. "Your parents are going to be there," he countered, frowning. "How're you gonna explain two drifters like us?"

Becka grinned. This was a question she had an easy answer for. "Let's put it like this," she drawled, her gray eyes glittering. "My dad still daydreams about those few weeks when your Impala was sitting pretty in our garage. As long as you bring your car, he'll love you."

"Huh." A few seconds passed in silence, and then, "Damn it," groused Dean, when they were two people away from the bar counter. He exhaled, loud, in frustration. "I forgot the flowers in the car."

"You brought Lily flowers?" Becka took her eyes off the drinks menu posted on the wall above the bartender's head to glance at the hunter.

Still scanning through the list of bars on tap, he did not notice her scrutiny. "Isn't that what you do at plays and things?"

"Yeah, but . . ."

Dean looked down at her, and a shadow flickered across his face. "Surprised?" The word was tinged with bitterness.

"No." Embarrassed, Becka shook her head at her own stupid reaction. "I shouldn't be – you and Sam, you're practically family."

The hunter said nothing, but his jaw tensed for a moment, and then he turned his eyes back towards the bar.

Fumbling now, the Slayer tightened her grip on his arm. Firm but not painful - that was the way to go. "There should be time to get the flowers before we all find Lily at the stage door," she said.

"Mmm." Dean moved the last step up to the bar. "Sure you don't want anything? My treat."

"I'm good," replied Becka softly.

As the man ordered his beer, she frowned at the carpet.  No matter how many years passed, she had a feeling that she would never truly understand Dean Winchester. There were, perhaps, two people who could ever have made that claim. One of them was the impetus behind tonight's little soiree. And as for the other - well, the other was ashes, floating somewhere in the depths of San Francisco Bay.

* * *

**11:00 p.m.**

"Dean! Sam! Beck! Everyone else!"

Angel watched from the sidelines as the blonde actress tackled first her roommate, then Sam, and finally Dean in a series of breathless, enthusiastic hugs. Now out of her gold ballgown, the Slayer had changed into a pair of skinny jeans and a heavy maroon sweater. Her pale skin was still somewhat orange from the stage makeup, and thick trails of black eyeliner extended out from the sides of her eyes, making her seem a little larger than life. The vampire smiled crookedly to himself. Lily had always been the more dramatic of Faith's girls.

As the actress stepped back from the older Winchester, the man cleared his throat.

"Got these for you," he said, bringing his arm out from around his back to reveal a bouquet of bright red carnations carefully wrapped in a layer of white butcher paper.

Lily rose up onto her tiptoes to press a scarlet kiss to the hunter's cheek. "Thank you." Dropping back onto her heels, she asked, "How'd you like the show?"

"You did good, Lil." The corners of his eyes crinkled as he smiled. "Almost had me liking Cinderella."

Grinning, the actress laughed. "Fantastic! Then my work here is done." She took a step backwards and surveyed the others. "Don't know about the rest of you, but I'm starving. Anybody else feel like Big Al's? They have pie," she added in a wheedling voice, directing this last to Dean.

She was met with a chorus of agreement and a sharp laugh from the man in question.

"Sure," said Dean. "I'll bring the car around."

As the others closed in around Lily, quick to assure her of her brilliance in the show, Angel followed the hunter away down the dark pavement toward the lights of the parking garage. They made it fifty feet past the rest of the group before the hunter spoke, "I know why you're here."

"Mmm," replied the vampire noncommittally. He fell into step beside Dean and casually slid his hands into his pockets. The cold couldn't do much harm to the undead, but that by no means made it pleasant.

Dean waited until they reached the entrance of the garage, and then he asked, "So what was the conclusion?"

"The conclusion?" Angel feigned ignorance.

"Don't play dumb," snapped the man, but it was said with more weariness than anger. In the harsh lights of the stairwell, the lines surrounding his eyes stood out in stark relief. "I know Beck and Lil called you all here to check up on me."

Angel decided not to waste time denying it. "They mean well. The Slayers."

"Yeah." Dean started charging up the concrete steps. "But this wasn't completely their idea, was it? I mean, this little cabal has Sam written all over it."

Rather than fanning the flames by replying, the vampire remained silent. He followed the hunter up to the fourth floor, careful to keep at least three stairs' worth of distance between them at all times.

When they finally reached the fourth landing, Dean glanced over his shoulder and said curtly, "So. What reason exactly did he give you all to get you to fly over here?"

"I think . . ." Angel hesitated, aware of the importance of word choice here. "I think he's worried about you . . . worried about how you're doing, how you're coping."

The hunter sucked his teeth and then tutted his tongue loudly against the roof of his mouth in a sound of derision. "And you? What do you think?"

"I'm not really the person to ask about this kind of thing," answered Angel.

"Oh yeah?" Dean slowed to a halt beside his gleaming black muscle car. "And why's that?"

The vampire looked down at his shoes for a brief moment. "Faith ever tell you about the time when I, uh, spent a couple decades living in alleys, eating rats out of a bad mixture of guilt and self-pity?"

Dean paused with his key in the door of the Impala. "No," he said slowly, regarding Angel with a mixture of confusion and amusement, "she never thought to mention that."

"Not exactly something I'm proud of. So you can see why I'm really not the most qualified to answer Sam's question."

"Huh." The hunter unlocked his car and pulled the door open. Watching the vampire from over the roof of the Chevy, he asked, "You seriously ate rats?"

Angel slid into the shotgun seat. "Mostly drank the blood - but yes."

"For decades?" He turned the key in the ignition.

The vampire buckled his seat belt. "Over twenty years."

Gently easing the Impala out of her parking spot, Dean wondered, "How'd they taste?"

"Actually . . ." Angel thought for a brief moment. "You know, actually not that bad."

* * *

**February 14, 2016, Cleveland, Ohio, 1:30 a.m.**

"Well, that was a fun experience," Sam said under his breath. He nodded towards the cash register where his brother was currently paying for everyone's dinners with a plastered-on smile and a fraudulent credit card.

"I'm sorry if we went overboard," Becka apologized. She watched her fiancé's shoulders slump as he lost a pointless argument with Dean about covering the bill.

"You know us Slayers," added Lily. "We tend to err on the dramatic side."

The hunter shook off their apologies. "It's fine. What . . . what did you think?"

"Honestly?" said Becka with another glance at James and Dean taking mints from beside the cash register and tossing them to Fred and Andrew. "I think he might be fine. Like Angel said, he's functioning okay, isn't he? And he acted completely reasonable tonight."

Lily pitched in, "He even brought me flowers."

"No," the hunter disagreed. "Something's wrong. I'm going to keep looking."

Elbows brushing, the two Slayers exchanged glances heavy with meaning, and then they slowly turned back to Sam. "Be careful," said the blonde firmly.

"I will," Sam swore, and then he moved away from them, walking purposefully towards his older brother, a smile pinned to his face.

Becka and Lily looked at each other once again and sighed in unison, knowing better. No, he really wouldn't.


	8. Shattered

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Giant apologies for the delay. I can promise that I've already written the next chapter and sent it off to my beta, so hopefully this marks the end of the two-month mini-hiatuses. Graduate school can be a little life-devouring sometimes. Hopefully the length of this chapter (somewhat) makes up for the extended wait. Spoilers ahead for the second half of SPN season 9.
> 
> Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays to everyone!

 

* * *

**February 16th, 2016, Lebanon, Kansas, 1:25 p.m.**

"The musical wasn't half bad."

"Mmm." Dean glanced away from the screen of his laptop, where an episode of the Wire was playing out with its customary gunfire, to the ghost who was pacing back and forth in front of the doorway.

"Don't get me wrong," Faith added, "I definitely think they could have used an editor and cut it down by half an hour, but the music was pretty okay."

The hunter slid his finger over the computer trackpad, pausing his show. "Ah. You were listening then. I wasn't sure."

Faith snorted. "As if I'd ever pass up the chance to watch you make Becka's fiancé wet himself? Please, Dean. You know me better than that."

"Good point." He clicked 'play' again, then casually wondered, "You okay?"

"Huh?" She stared at him in surprise.

Patiently, the man explained himself, "If you were there, then you saw everyone – Angel, Spike, Fred, Drew, the girls . . . That can't have been easy."

The ghost cocked her head to one side and blinked. "I – I don't . . ." She paused, frowning thoughtfully. "It's been a year, Dean. I don't feel things the way I used to. It's all fuzzy. Unless I super focus on something, it's all fuzzy. Funny thing is, it doesn't really bother me that much."

"Hmm." Dean flashed her a glance heavy with concern, but the Slayer shrugged it off. Honestly, she didn't mind the fuzziness. It kept the existential crises to a minimum.

"I overheard you, by the way," she continued, deciding to let the cat out of the bag. "Talking to Sam earlier. About Kevin."

The hunter's shoulders slumped. "So you know – "

"About the Veil being the sticky spider web of doom and all of us ghosties being the flies? Yeah, I know. Not that it really changes things for me – not with Crowley making his fricking deal and all."

"Speaking of Crowley," Dean turned the volume up on the computer and reached for the longneck beer that he had brought back with him from the kitchen, "I've been doing some thinking."

The Slayer perched her ghostly hindquarters on the edge of the bed and crossed one knee over the other, looking up at him. "Go on."

"He said his contact was dead, didn't he?"

"Yeah . . ."

"Then we work this one piece at a time. Step one, we get Cain's old blade. Step two, we get Crowley to cancel his end of the deal."

Faith's forehead wrinkled. "Why would he do that? I mean, other than the fact he's had a hard-on for you since like, ever."

Dean choked on his beer and burst into a spluttering coughing fit. When he could catch his breath, he sputtered, "Crowley doesn't – "

"Please." She cut him off with a smirk. "And he's not the only one, either. The way Castiel looks at you sometimes . . . "

The hunter's irritation was replaced by a flash of panic. "You haven't been . . . You don't show up around Cass, do you?"

"Why, don't want the new boyfriend to feel threatened by the ex?" Faith drawled sweetly, batting her eyelids.

"Faith!"

"Relax, cowboy. I'm just messing with you." The ghost tossed her head. "Don't worry. I keep my angel snooping to a strict minimum. I mostly just listen in on conversations when he's in the bunker. Somebody's gotta keep an ear out, see if he's convincing you and Sam to do something stupid."

Dean grit his teeth. "Could you quit with the suspicion?"

In response, the Slayer rolled her eyes. "Could he start acting like he has more than two brain cells? Besides, Cass has been mind-controlled and manipulated before. Who's to say it won't happen again?"

"Wow." He whistled through his teeth. "You really are almost as paranoid as me."

"Damn straight. It's what keeps me alive." Faith frowned. "Or, what kept me alive, I guess. Anyway, back to your brilliant plan. Step two, you get Crowley to swear off my soul in exchange for letting him stick his tongue down your throat."

"Faith!" Dean hissed again, this time more in amusement than outrage.

"What, you don't think Crowley kisses dirty? I bet he's –"

"Step three," the hunter said firmly. "Step three, we deal with Abaddon. Step four, we handle those winged nightmares. Once we take out Metatron, we'll fix the rest of the angels. Step five, we get the Veil re-opened and send you up to Heaven."

"What if I don't like Heaven?" Faith said in a quiet voice, derailing the conversation.

He narrowed his eyes at her. "Everyone likes Heaven. That's why it's Heaven."

"What was it like?" the ghost wondered, her voice almost tentative. "That time that you remember?"

"Different," answered Dean slowly. "It's supposed to be made up of your favorite, happiest memories, I guess. And you just kind of wander between them. I only remember a couple, but my mom was there, Sam was there – not sure what the rest of it looks like, to be honest."

"O-kay. Back to the big plan. You really think it'll work out that easy?"

"Once we get the First Blade – "

"Who is this 'we' that you're referring to? You, me, Samwise, and Angel dust?" Fingers interlocked around her knee, she leaned forward. "You really gonna tell them about me? 'Cause you know what'll happen, right?"

Dean exhaled heavily. "They'll try to get rid of you. Like I tried. Only they aren't suckers like me, so they'll probably succeed. No," the hunter dismissed the idea. "This is . . ." He paused, then continued. "This is between you and me. And as long as you can keep it together, it's going to stay that way."

"Me, keep it together?" The Slayer said in tones of feigned shock. "Dude, I'm not the one who gets sloppy drunk, mistakes the waitress for a girl he slept with in high school, and got us kicked out of the bar before I'd even gotten my french fires."

Dean winced. He could remember the night she was referring to easily. It had been years ago, back when Sam was still at Stanford. They hadn't known each other too well in those days, and somehow through a combination of exhaustion and the greater portion of a bottle of Wild Turkey, he had lost control a little bit. "That was one time. I did that one time. It wasn't – wasn't a good day."

"Hey, don't do that," said Faith, watching his face, and catching the first hints of a slide into despondency. "I wasn't trying to make you feel bad. Guess my sense of humor's kind of messed up now, too, huh?"

Dean flopped backwards onto his bed without bothering to crawl under the covers. "Your sense of humor's always been messed up," he countered.

Faith sent a pillow zooming at him with a flick of her fingers. He jerked his hands up in time to catch it. Half-smiling, the hunter stuck the pillow beneath his head and wriggled around on the mattress until he got comfortable. "Nap time," he announced. "If you're sticking around, turn up the heater."

"What do you think I'm gonna do, watch you sleep? Jeez, Dean, I'm not like Castiel. I got better things to do with my time than to watch you mouth-breathe."

"I do _not_ mouth-breathe."

Taking pity on him, she retracted her accusation. "Okay, you don't always mouth-breathe. But you do sometimes. Hey," she added at his crestfallen expression, "At least you snore less than your brother."

"Well, now I feel all better," said Dean sarcastically. "Thanks for that."

The Slayer beamed, and she laid down on the far side of the bed, folding her arms across her chest and gazing up at the ceiling.

Dean turned his head to glance at her. "That do anything for you?"

"Not really," answered Faith mournfully. "Takes more work than I'd like not to fall through it onto the floor. But if I imagine hard enough, I can almost feel the mattress."

"G-d." He rolled back over until they were facing one another.

"Do you mind if . . . I mean, can I?" Faith gestured with ghostly hands to the dark red bulging Mark pressed into the flesh just above his right elbow.

Dean shrugged. "Go ahead. Knock yourself out, slim."

Faith reached out and traced the edge of the Mark with a single translucent finger. Then she glanced up into the hunter's green eyes. "It's burning," she said in surprise. "Does it feel that way to you, or is it just me?"

The hunter lifted his other hand up to touch the Mark, inadvertently passing through Faith's wrist as he did so. "It's warm," he replied shortly. "But not burning. You're frakking cold, though."

"But that's not new," the two said in unison.

Faith smiled, almost sadly, and she retracted her hand. "You should get that nap. Before another crisis hits."

"Yeah." Dean gave her a long, hard look, and then he turned onto his back with the ghost of a sigh. "You're probably right."

"Of course I'm right," said Faith, more cheerfully this time. "When am I ever not right?"

"That time you tried purple lipstick," Dean mumbled, already drifting off. "Gotta say Faith, violet just is not your color."

* * *

**February 16th, 2016, Lebanon, Kansas, 5:30 p.m.**

By the time the hunter awoke, the glowing digital clock on the nightstand showed that four hours had passed. The lights had all been turned off, and the room was comfortably warm, for once. In the last year, he had gotten used to being cold more often than not, but that didn't mean that he liked it.

Still in the half-lucid land between dreaming and sleeping, Dean rolled over towards the other side of the bed. Yawning, he rubbed ineffectually at his gritty eyes. He'd left his phone somewhere over there, hadn't he?

Halfway across the mattress, the man found himself immersed in ice. The room plunged from warm to many, many degrees south of freezing, and in the deep spaces of his mind where there was usually nothing but silence, something uncomfortable and alien was suddenly crowding him.

"Get out!"he shouted, but the words never made it to his vocal cords. The ice expanded, filling every corner and crevice of his body, and something feral snarled inside his head, in the place where nothing that was not him should ever be.

"Get off!" He felt rather than heard a furious, high-pitched, equally panicked voice.

"Get. OUT!"

"Get. OFF!"

"OUT!"

"OFF!"

"OUT!"

"OFF!"

With a jerk and a sharp inhale, the hunter managed to fling himself off the bed and onto the rug that cushioned the concrete floor. Only belatedly did he recognize the voice that had been screaming inside his head. "What the hell was that?" he asked, rubbing at his chest where the cold and the pain continued to linger.

From above him on the bed, the dead Slayer stared down with wild eyes as she clutched at her throat. "I think . . ." She gulped audibly. "I think I just possessed you."

Dean scrambled onto his feet. "The frak, Faith?!"

The Slayer was instantly across the room, leaning against the far wall with her hands held up in a placating gesture. "Sorry," she said with a wince. "I didn't mean to do it. But you kinda rolled on top of me . . . And then it just kind of happened."

"Right." The cold finally receding from his chest, Dean took in a deep breath. "Right," he repeated, retreating towards the wall closest to him. He slowly slid down the plastered surface until he was sitting on the floor. The hunter was beginning to realize that it might be time for a conversation about co-sleeping and boundaries. "We need to get this Heaven and Hell thing figured out," he said at length, making the understatement of the century. "Cause this? Not working so hot."

"Yeah," murmured Faith in agreement. "I know."

"Like, really, really not so hot."

"Heard you the first time, Dean. I'm dead, not deaf."

"Yep. Well, guess at least I'm awake now." Dean stood abruptly and crossed to the door in three quick steps. "And I need a drink."

* * *

**March 7th, 2016, Waterbury, Connecticut, 11:42 p.m.**

Cold wind. A moonless night. Empty warehouses, their windows shattered and their insides gutted. The faint rumble of an adjacent highway. After the quiet of the bunker and of the Veil, the desolation of abandoned factories in post-Industrialization Connecticut was music to Faith's metaphorical ears and manna to whatever was left of her soul. She glanced to her left, a hundred feet away where Dean Winchester was rounding the far corner of the warehouse of interest tonight. Word on the street had it that there was a particularly nasty nest of vamps who like to squat in this district. And by street, Faith meant the demon bar that she had convinced Dean to drop into earlier this evening.

The more time that went by between her Fyarl-driven fatality and the present, the less she cared about policing her own thoughts. Her world had been stripped away, leaving her with little motivation and even fewer priorities. She had one job, namely to keep one Dean Winchester out of trouble. As a prime instigator of that trouble, Sam was sometimes on her sh-t list, alongside one particularly literal angel of the Lord. It wasn't that she disliked them, per se. It was just that they made her job harder.

Sam had no idea what was going on tonight, which was exactly how Faith liked it. Dean had lied to his little brother, telling him that he was taking the night to look up an old friend in Bridgeport. Instead, he was an hour north, casing a different city for vampires, as both he and the Slayer were becoming uncomfortably antsy. Sam appeared to have taken the lie at face value – all for the better. Faith had long ago passed the point where she felt guilty about the Winchesters lying to one another. It was just one more thing their family excelled at, along with hunting, dying, and making deals with demons.

This was simply the latest in a series of hunting exercises. Faith and Dean had slowly been testing her limits in an attempt to determine how far she could be from the cross necklace before her ability to move and to manifest faded. Whenever too much distance grew between them, Faith would be snapped back to the cross, like a breaking rubber band. It was spectacularly uncomfortable, especially when she overshot too much and snapped herself right back into the Veil.

So far, they had managed to work her up to a hundred yards of distance. But even that had Faith feeling like she was on the verge of mental hemorrhoids. She focused and concentrated until every inch of her spectral soul ached, and she moved one foot in front of the next. She hesitated outside one of the warehouse windows, the upper right quarter of which had been shattered, with a gaping jagged hole and spidery cracks that spread their way out to the far corners of the windows.

Faith brushed a goopy, mucus-clumped lock of hair away from her eyes and tucked it behind her ear. She counted slowly – one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten – then drifted through the steel wall into the warehouse proper.

Once inside, the Slayer closed her eyes and listened. She heard the faint rustle of footsteps somewhere above her. Faith paused a moment more to reassure herself that the noises were not of the rodent variety, and then she flung her arms out to her sides and ascended upwards to the second floor. Stairs – and gravity – were constructs that applied more to the living than the dead.

She found herself standing solidly in the middle of a toilet. With a shake of her head, the ghost stepped forward through the porcelain bowl, past a warped wooden door, the white paint peeling in long, narrow strips, and along a low-ceilinged hallway. Were she alive, the abandoned building would have been mildly creepy.

As it was, Faith stifled a yawn. Creepy was among the many words that had lost its meaning since she became a ghost, along with 'nap time,' 'heart-racing,' and 'cheeseburger.' G-d, what Faith would do for a cheeseburger. Or a nap. Or a hot shower.

_Focus_ , she reminded herself as the muted noise of angry voices reached her ears. _Focus_. She moved further down the hallway, and the crusty metallic tang of dried blood combined with the fetid reek of corruption filled her nostrils. Rounding the corner, the ghost entered a large room, its ceiling supported by rusty iron columns. The floor was scattered with human remains in various stages of decomposition. Paired wounds were visible at the wrists and necks of the fresher corpses. Faith wrinkled her nose in disgust. Vampires.

Gliding by the worst of the carnage, she approached the far end of the room, where five figures doing a fantastic impression of hobos were seated around a steel bin filled with burning trash. The figures – vampires, Faith concluded at the sight of fangs and heavily ridged foreheads – were grumbling to each other about something, but the ghost did not care enough to pay attention. She was far more interested in the wooden pallets that they were perched on.

_Come on, Dean_ , thought the ghost impatiently. _Time to get this show on the road._

She waited for what felt like an eternity (but was really only five minutes), when one of the bodies lying just outside the circle of vampires moaned and twitched.

The tallest of the vamps chuckled. "Well, lookie here. Guess we got ourselves a live one." He moved into a half-crouch and grabbed the whimpering human by the hair, dragging him back toward the fire. In the dim orange light, Faith could easily pick out the human's features. He was a boy, maybe all of twelve years old, his sandy blond hair matted across his forehead with still-glistening blood.

Time was up. She couldn't delay acting any longer. Her gut clenching, the Slayer forced herself to concentrate just a bit harder, and she manifested in the center of the circle of vamps.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," she said casually, crossing her arms over her leather jacket.

To a one, the vampires jumped to their feet.

"What the . . ." spluttered the sole female vampire.

"Is that a –" hissed one of the males.

"Ghost?" finished another.

"By G-d, it is," laughed the tall vamp, and he dropped the boy onto the hard floor. "Didn't realize these here digs were haunted. Where you been, girlie? We done been living here for a month. You sleepin' this whole time?"

Faith bared her teeth. "Let's just say I like to ramble." She grabbed the back of the boy's collar and then disappeared again, hauling him to the far side of the room, before returning to the vampires. They were frozen in shock, which gave Faith the moment that she needed to act.

As the ghost clenched her hands into fists, the wooden pallets creaked and splintered into a hundred fragments. "Say hello to my little friends," growled the Slayer, and then she opened her palms.

The shattered pallets exploded into the air, piercing the bodies of the vampires like buckshot scattering out of the barrel of a shotgun. The vampires hollered, then screamed as Faith used her remaining energy to grab them one by one by their coats and hurl them into the trash can fire, where they soon crumbled into ash.

Satisfied, Faith plodded one slow step at a time to the still-moaning boy. He had curled up around himself, clutching his elbow, which was twisted at an awkward angle. More likely a dislocation than a fracture, if Faith's instincts were anything to go by. She reached out to touch him, but instead was jerked into the icy mist of the Veil. The Slayer had finally overextended herself.

Faith drifted momentarily, and then panic filled her. She had to get back. She had to protect something. But she could no longer remember who or what that something was. Gradually, the urgency drained away to be replaced by apathy, until something startled her out of her daze.

"Hey! Faith!"

Even in the confusion of the Veil, she knew that furious voice. The Slayer gave one last push and flickered back to existence. She stared into a familiar pair of green eyes.

"Get the kid," she mumbled hoarsely, her gaze drifting from the man's face to the silver cross dangling from his neck. "Burn the . . . Burn the rest."

And then, utterly exhausted, she faded back into the Veil.

* * *

**March 8th, 2016, Greenwich, Connecticut, 5:07 a.m.**

"You did good."

While she had been out of things, the hunter had driven them halfway to New York. The Slayer now sat in the front seat of the Impala, her legs curled beneath her. Dean was blasting both AC/DC and the heater, and the ghost's necklace was once again hanging off the rearview mirror.

"Thanks," Faith croaked, and she turned her head to watch the dark telephone poles flashing by outside the window.

"Took the kid to the local ER," said the hunter conversationally.

Leaning her shoulder against the chill of the glass, the Slayer managed a faint smile. "Good."

In a carefully controlled voice, he mused, "Had no idea you could do that. The pallet thing."

"Me either."

"Kinda more . . . intense than your usual. You feeling okay?"

The ghost swiveled in her seat long enough to give him a surprised look and a sardonic, "I'll live."

Dean snorted. "Nice one."

"I didn't mean it like . . . Never mind. What took you so long anyway?"

Chewing on his lip, he admitted, "Stairs were busted. Had to find a creative way to get past 'em."

"Oh." Faith glanced back to the window. She could already feel herself slipping away into the Veil. "I'm gonna . . ." Her voice trailed off.

"It's okay. You go recoup wherever it is you recoup."

Although the permission was unnecessary, the Slayer appreciated it regardless. "Mmm."

"And Faith?"

She twisted to see his pensive expression. "Yeah?"

"You did real good back there." Dean cleared his throat. "I mean it. I'm proud of you."

* * *

**March 23rd, 2016, Lebanon, Kansas, 8:20 a.m.**

He had planned on the Slayer being pissed when she found out about his little trip to visit Cuthbert Sinclair, sorcerer and Men of Letters reject. What he had not planned on, however, was for her to listen without saying a word until his story had spun to its end, and he tugged the donkey jawbone out from beneath the hem of his coat to show her the First Blade. The ghost's eyes sparked darker with interest, and then she pushed herself away from the wall of the hunter's bedroom.

"Allow me to dig the metaphorical wax out of my ears," Faith began lightly. "You did _WHAT_?!" Her voice leapt up an octave and boomed out several decibels. "Without me?"

"Look," soothed the hunter, "it's no big deal. We snuck in, I got the blade, I put Sinclair down, not a big thing. 'Sides," he glanced off to the side, scratching the back of his neck, "I was trying to protect you."

"Protect me?" The Slayer laughed, a dry, empty rattle that set Dean's teeth on edge. That . . . that was a not a Faith laugh. That was a ghost laugh. The old fear – held at bay for the last few months – surged again. If she was beginning to change . . .

Still laughing, the ghost continued, "Hate to wet the paper for you, Dean, but I'm dead. Ain't nothing I need protecting from."

That was enough. Dean crossed the room until only two feet of space remained between them. "You miss the part of the story where I told you how Sinclair hoarded magical artifacts?" he growled. "Well, guess what, Faith? A cross with the ghost of a damn Slayer attached to it? Last time I checked, that falls under the category of magical artifacts!"

Shaking his head, the hunter took a deep breath and lowered his voice. "If I'd brought you with me, he'd have twigged onto the necklace in a second, and it would have made the job a nightmare. Anyway," he stepped backward, "like I said, I've got the blade." Dean gave the weapon an experimental twirl. "No one but Sinclair died. Way I see it, that means mission accomplished."

"Doesn't make it better," snarled the ghost. The temperature in the room began to creep downwards towards freezing, one slow degree at a time.

Dean's foreboding grew. First weird laughs, now temper tantrums - this was not good. "The Hell it doesn't," he snapped back. "And quit messing with the heat just because you're pissy."

"Wrong." Faith tossed her head obstinately, but the temperature started to gradually climb again. "What if you hadn't gotten to the Blade, huh, genius? What if you didn't make it out? Without me to watch your back? You need me," she reminded him.

"I told you already." The man was beginning to lose his patience. "Sam was there, and we had Crowley on standby."

The Slayer rolled her eyes. As if that was good enough. "Right."

He clenched his jaw, his fingers tightening around the hilt of his new favorite weapon. "You got something to say? Say it."

Faith spread her arms out expansively. "What's the point, Dean?" she asked, her anger suddenly giving way to fatigue. "What's the frigging point to all of this? To me? Unless you let me in on a case, all I do is chill in the stupid Veil. And I'm . . . things . . . it's all slipping.

"Not so much memories," she added at his deepening frown, "but feelings. Like, I remember stuff that happened, but I don't remember why it was so important. You talk about protecting me?" The Slayer laughed again, another broken noise that made Dean's skin crawl. "G-d, why mess with a system that isn't broken?"

"Hey – "

"No." The Slayer prodded the man's chest with one frozen finger. "I'm the one that protects you, remember? I'm the one who hops up onto my white horse and flies across the ocean to help you out with all of your apocalyptic emotional sh-t. Living or dead. Doesn't seem to matter."

Retreating back to her wall, she continued in a calmer voice, "You know, the other day I found myself wondering – why was it that I came every damn time you called? Why was it that I never called you? Why weren't you the one coming to me?"

"I . . ." The hunter started weakly, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down. That had been a low blow, and they both knew it. "I know I wasn't there. I wasn't there in California, and I'm sor – "

"Whoa, Lone Ranger," Faith cut him off. "This isn't about you, actually. It's about me. So hold off on the martyrdom for a second, okay? The other day I forgot, but this morning I remembered. I didn't call because I had things under control," the ghost explained. "Because as much as we argued, I knew Buffy would come through with the Slayer girl power. Because I'd already survived prison and the explosion of the Hellmouth, and honestly, after that nothing seemed to suck too much in comparison."

Faith ran a hand through her hair and sighed. When she spoke again, her tone was softer, gentler. "And why did I get on that damn plane every damn time? Because you needed the backup, genius, and me – I needed you." She snorted. "Besides, it's not as if I could trust your brother or the feather duster to watch your six. Not like I did. You didn't have to come screeching up in the Batmobile to pay me back; you just had to pick up the phone.

"But it wasn't about owing," she finished. "Not ever. Now . . ." the woman glanced to the side in search of something to relieve the tension. "How about you show me that pretty new toy of yours? And then," as Dean brought the blade further into the light, "whaddya say we blow this place and find us something more fun?"

Dean forced some of the tension out of his shoulders. "Like what? Ghosts Gone Wild: Spring Break Edition?"

"Not quite." The Slayer grinned wolfishly. "I was thinking something more along the lines of a vampire or demon or two. A weapon that can kill anything? I wanna see this beauty in action."

* * *

**March 28th, 2016, Pawhuska, Oklahoma, 11:00 p.m.**

Word had come in the night before. Werewolves were running wild in Osage County, and a local shaman was requesting backup. The Brothers Winchester had packed up their gear and driven the three hours south, passing through the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve on their way to rendezvous with the shaman, Charles Mathews. Earlier this morning, they had met the man in question outside a Quik-Trip gas station, and he had filled them in on the case details.

After spending the afternoon reviewing Charles' notes and speaking to the families of the three dead girls, the hunters split up. Dean sent his brother off with the shaman, claiming that he would be all right on his own. In reality, the sound of the other man's pick-up had barely died away before Dean was digging the necklace out of his wallet and summoning the Slayer out of the Veil by holding a lighter to the base of the turquoise pendant.

"Morning, sunshine," he said to a particularly disoriented-looking Faith. "You been paying attention?"

"No." The ghost yawned. "What's the 411?"

Dean gave her the thirty-second version of the case, concluding with the location of the last murder.

"Gotacha," said Faith when he finished. "We're hunting wabbits – I mean werewolves."

"Cool it, Elmer Fudd," replied the hunter tersely but without heat. "We got work to do."

He drove another ten miles along rural highways out into the sticks before pulling off onto a dirt driveway that led through the loosely-timbered wood where the final victim had been found the previous morning. Faith followed the hunter out of the car and into a stand of scrub oak and cedar. From there on out, the two moved along the path without exchanging another word. As she kept to the hunter's heels, the ghost took advantage of her state of heightened awareness to do some thinking.

Beneath her equanimity, she was still pissed about the business with Sinclair. The Slayer had tried to pretend that it didn't matter, that she didn't care, but under her ennui and boredom ran a quiet thread of anger and resentment. She was more than half-tempted to punch Dean on his perfectly angled jaw. Unfortunately, Faith knew that it would not do anyone a lick of good.

They had been creeping their way through the trees for almost half an hour when Dean stiffened in front of her. The hunter rocked back onto his heels and jerked his head to the side. It was the only warning they had before something hairy and snarling leapt out, crashing into the man, its long yellowed claws piercing his jacket and raking along the side of his neck. Dean went down with an expletive and a thud beneath the heavy body of the werewolf.

Faith did not bother with hesitation or thought. She darted forward and slammed her fist through the creature's spine and ribs. Blood and bone and lungs squished along her path, burning her skin. The ghost splayed her fingers wide open and closed them around the werewolf's heart. And then with a great rip she tore the heart free from its vessel attachments and dragged it back through the ribs out into the night air. She threw the heart onto the spring grass beneath her feet with that hand, and with the other she flung the corpse, oozing blood, off of the hunter.

Shallow claw marks extended from Dean's jaw to his collarbone, and the spray of arterial blood from the werewolf had spattered liberally over the man's face and clothing. His green eyes were wide in shock and something that too closely resembled fear for the ghost's comfort. Faith felt the grin slowly sliding off her face.

"Oops."

* * *

**April 2nd, 2016, Lebanon, Kansas, 7:15 p.m.**

"What are you – Dean, what is that?" Faith asked worriedly. The rectangular box on the oaken work table looked innocuous enough, but something about its harsh, unforgiving lines and utter lack of decoration made her feel a little queasy. The last time that she had seen the hunter, she had just eviscerated the monster trying to chew his face off. He had not looked too pleased then, and he did not look pleased now.

"Ran an errand to a local welder," answered Dean, which was really no answer at all. He tugged his battered leather wallet out of his jeans pocket and thumbed past the fake IDs and phony credit cards until he came to the silver chain and turquoise cross. The hunter opened the box. Its insides were unlined – the same cold gray metal as the exterior. He dropped the necklace inside.

A freezing burn erupted along every inch of the ghost's skin, and she was dragged, unwilling step by unwilling step towards the box.

"Dean," she gasped hoarsely. "What the f-"

"Iron imbedded with salt. Got the idea from Bobby's panic room."

She was a third of the way across the concrete already, struggling against the compulsion by taking the tiniest steps that she could. "Why?"

The hunter folded his arms over his chest and regarded her coolly, "The hunt a couple of nights ago. You were out of control."

"So you thought it'd be good to have a little torture time?" she asked hysterically

Gritting his teeth, he said, "Until the veil becomes less of the Iron Curtain part two, you're benched."

"Frak you." Despite fighting for every single inch forward, Fatih was now less than a foot from the table.

"You'll thank me later." With a casual flick of his hand, Dean knocked the lid of the box closed.

The ghost was instantly plunged into darkness, trapped wholly in the Veil. Unable to move, unable to manifest, unable to see. Fury swelled within her, but it met no release – only the implacable fire of salt and iron. G-d damn him. How dare he? In that place that was not a place, hot anger coursed from her hairline to her feet, and Faith threw back her head and screamed.

* * *

**April 6th, 2016, Esbon, Kansas, 10:53 p.m.**

Dean Winchester was not generally one to corner other men in the bathrooms of dive bars, but tonight he was making an exception. He 'accidentally' knocked his whiskey into the King of Hell's lap, and then he gave the demon three minutes before following him into the grungy restroom. Reaching across to the creaking faucet, the hunter turned the water off. "Let's make a deal."

Unfazed, Crowley reached for a paper towel and began patting his hands dry. "I'm all ears."

Lowering his voice, Dean asked a rhetorical question. "You want Abaddon dead?"

"Don't act like you're doing me some sort of favor, Squirrel," the demon retorted. "You want to gank the red-headed bitch as much as I do."

The hunter tilted his head from side to side. "Maybe, maybe not. But I don't need your help to do it."

"You need me to find her," countered Crowley.

With a step forward, Dean crowded the demon against the stained porcelain sink. "Uh uh. No. What I need you for – all I need you for – is to burn up a certain contract you made with certain unnamed parties upstairs."

This forced the King of Hell to look up in order to maintain eye contact. "Allow me to hazard a guess. This revolves around your special spectral Slayer, does it not?"

"Watch it," Dean snapped.

"Please." Crowley brushed the man's irritation aside. "You're easy to read. And as touching as your sentimentality might be, the answer is no. I have no interest in being part of your little soap opera. The Brown-Eyed Ghost, the Green-Eyed Boy, and the Red-Eyed King of Hell who has quite enough of your endless drama? I think not. Yes," he added with an eye roll, "I've read those damn books. Oppo research, I believe they call it? Although I must admit there were some interesting," his gaze raked the hunter from head to toe, "parts."

"Enough with the chitchat." Whipping the first blade out from where it had been concealed by his jacket, the hunter shoved it against the soft edges of the demon's throat. "Your life, her freedom."

"Okay, okay," gasped the King of Hell, ever a survivor. "I'll cancel it. There – " He snapped his fingers. "All done. She's free to go upstairs – if the wankers will accept her."

Dean grinned. "You say that like I'm giving them a choice." He released the demon, giving him a push into the porcelain sink edge, and walked out of the bathroom.

"Oh dear," said the demon, sotto voce, as he watched the hunter leave. The King of Hell smirked to himself. A Winchester versus the powers of Heaven? Not entirely original, but at least it would be entertaining.

* * *

**June 15th, 2016, Lebanon, Kansas, 2:45 p.m.**

"You have the blade, now let's go before your brother and his feathery friends get back," hissed Crowley.

"No." Dean wiped the bloody vomit caking his mouth off on his sleeve. His fingers tightened painfully around the raw-hide wrapped bone handle of the First Blade, and he stumbled towards his bedroom. "One more thing I gotta grab."

"I wonder what it could be," muttered the demon under his breath, rolling his eyes.

Dean didn't bother responding. He merely shouldered open the door to his room and then knelt beside his bed. Reaching underneath, he pulled out a wooden casket with a multiplicity of protective and warding symbols burned into the top and sides and an iron padlock that shouted 'serious business.' The hunter placed the hand holding the Blade on top of the box, and then he fiddled with his keys until he found the one to the padlock.

Once he raised the lid of the casket, he looked down at the small iron container inside, ignoring the demon hovering over his shoulder. Dean frowned at the iron box. It maybe hadn't been his best idea - but he had been out of ideas at the time, and he simply hadn't had the energy to deal with a Slayer ghost going rabid on top of everything else. But now, his body was destroying itself from the inside out without blood to satisfy the Mark on his arm, which glowed like the embers of a dying fire, and he was ready to open his own personal Pandora's box.

Dean opened the iron box and carefully removed the necklace inside. As soon as the last links of the dangling chain cleared the iron, an icy wind yanked the cross out of his hands. The customarily Fyarl-snot encrusted form of the dead Slayer appeared, her grip tightening around the cross. Her brown eyes were fathomless pits in a translucent face. She kicked the wooden box closed and then raised her hand. The gesture lifted Dean off his feet and slammed him into the wall opposite, knocking his skull against the concrete with such force that everything went black.

When he came to, it couldn't have been much more than a minute later. Crowley leaned against the closed bedroom door, his eyebrows quirked in amusement. The ghost of the Slayer was hunched in half, bent in two at the waist and grabbing her knees for stability as she vomited chunks after chunks of black ectoplasm onto the threadbare rug.

Dean groaned and pushed himself off the floor with a wince. "You done?" he said when the loud retching paused.

The ghost straightened, flecks of dark goo lingering at the corners of her mouth. "I frakking hate you," she growled, but she made no move to attack him again. The necklace lay momentarily abandoned on the bed. "You have any idea what that thing's like?" She jerked her head towards the horrible box.

"No," admitted Dean truthfully.

"Total sensory deprivation. No sights, no sounds, no nothing. No sense of the Veil, even. Just black. You do that to me again, and it won't be some werewolf's heart I'm ripping out. It'll be yours."

Too exhausted to call her bluff, the hunter only muttered a half-hearted, "Sorry."

"Seriously?" Her voice hitched up several pitches in outrage. "That's it?"

Dean didn't have time for explanations right now. He needed to kill something – preferably Metatron – as soon as possible. "That's all I got. We're," he jerked his head towards Crowley, "gonna go deal with the angel overlord. Step four, remember?" he added with a token smile. "You in?"

The chill in the room abated, and the anger in the Slayer's face faded marginally. "I'm in."

"Good." Dean grabbed the cross from off the mattress and shoved it into the breast pocket of his plaid shirt, then turned to the demon. "Let's go."

* * *

**June 15th, 2016, Manhattan, Kansas, 5:00 p.m.**

"No idea you were such a fan of Alice In Chains," Crowley pointed out sardonically two hours into their drive towards Murcie, Indiana.

Dean frowned at the demon for pulling him out of his thoughts. "What are you talking about?"

"It may have escaped your notice, but your radio has been playing Man in the Box for the last half hour."

The hunter fumbled with the stereo controls, but the speakers continued to blare the same damn song. He caught a flash of brown eyes gleaming with triumph from the back seat in the rearview mirror, and then returned to staring at the highway. The Slayer could be many things, he reflected in annoyance – but subtle was not one of them. After a moment, he said, "Knock it off, Faith."

The guitars on the radio cut to silence, and the ghost appeared, fully visible, sitting in the middle of the back seat, her elbows balanced on her knees. "I got some questions."

"Spit," said Dean brusquely. He could feel the weight of Crowley's inquisitive gaze, and it just added to the laundry list of the things that were driving him crazy.

Faith glanced from the hunter to the King of Hell, as if considering her options, and then back to the man. "What's the date today?" she asked in a quiet voice.

"June fifteenth."

"Of?"

"Twenty-sixteen."

"So I was in that box for – "

"Two and a half months, yeah." Dean risked a look in the rearview mirror. "You pissed?" he hazarded.

The ghost shook her head slowly from side to side. "Not as much as I was. Still think it was a sh-tty thing to do."

"You were ripping hearts out," he reminded her shortly.

She threw her hands up in frustration. "He was going to kill you! Don't argue with my methods, Dean. They're what saved your life."

"Yeah, well, maybe I don't want it to be saved," the man snapped back.

"You don't mean that," scoffed Faith. "Can it, Crowley," she added fiercely as the demon opened his mouth to comment.

"Whatever." Dean shifted in his seat. "Here's the deal. This whole ghost thing – it's finally starting to change you – or maybe I'm finally starting to see it. You never would have done something like that – before."

She sneered. "You really think you know what I would and wouldn't have done? All I do these days is think about my memories. And you know what? There's a lot of nasty things that I did. That I could have done. That I decided not to do. Not entirely sure why I didn't do them, now."

"Hold up –"

"And you know what else? I'm starting to come to the conclusion this isn't all about me. This's about you and that cherry-red sticker print you got tattooed with. You're projecting your crap onto me."

"I am not –"

"Dean."

He lapsed into begrudging silence. It wasn't the word itself that did it, but rather her voice. Exhausted and fading, but still laced with her characteristic undertone of 'Don't make me call you out on your bullsh-t in front of other people.'

After waiting to make sure that he stayed quiet, the ghost wondered, "You said we're on step four?"

"Yep," Dean bit off the final consonant.

"Which means that –"

"Steps two and three are taken care of."

"Okay. I'm . . ." Faith shuddered and dropped her head into her hands. "That damn box," she muttered to the floorboards. "I'm going radio silent. When you need me – "

"I'll call."

As she vanished, the stereo flared back to life, this time blasting 'Back in Black.' Dean instantly recognized it as a peace offering. Despite the shakes that were threatening to break loose in his hands and feet, some of the frustration eased out of his body.

"Well," said Crowley, his thoughtfully narrowed eyes never leaving the hunter's face, "that was quite the conversation. I almost needed a decoder ring."

"Crowley."

"Yes?"

"Shut the frak up."

* * *

**June 16th, 2016, Muncie, Indiana, 1:05 a.m.**

Faith answered the call of pain and fire, allowing it to draw her out of the Veil and back into the clamorous world of the living. She appeared beside the closed trunk of the Impala and raised her eyebrows at the sight of an unconscious Sam laid out flat on his back on the gravel. The ghost whistled, soft and low, then turned to the man who had summoned her.

Lowering his lighter from the silver cross, Dean tucked both lighter and cross back into his pockets. "It wasn't his fight," he said in reference to his brother. "He'll be safer this way." When the Slayer made no comment, he tugged the donkey jawbone out of the waistband of his jeans and tilted it this way and that, appreciating the way the streetlights overhead reflected on the sharp edge of the blade. He exhaled, walked a few steps away from the car, and then turned back to Faith. "You with me?" His voice was hesitant, uncertain.

With a shrug of her shoulders, the Slayer released the last of her resentment. The box had sucked, but she understood why he'd done it. Honestly, she probably ought to have predicted something like it happening, sooner or later. She caught up to him easily and knocked her elbow against his, taking care not to let it pass through him. "Where else?" she said lightly.

Dean cracked a hollow grin, and they set off across the damp, muddy parking lot towards the homeless encampment where Metatron – or Marv, or whatever he was calling himself these days – had set up camp.

Half in a trance, Faith stuck like an invisible burr to Dean's side as he followed the directions of the drifters and the bums towards Metatron. Empirically, she knew that she ought to have been excited – to have felt some sort of urgency. They were so close – so very close to extinguishing the obnoxious clerk angel who had wreaked so much destruction. Instead of excitement, Faith felt calm. Dean had the Blade. He would deliver the killing blow. All that she needed to do was to watch his back and make sure no acolytes snuck up on him. Faith smiled grimly to herself. That was easy. Watching Dean Winchester's back was pretty much the only thing keeping her from insanity these days.

They passed through a gutted packing plant into a deserted room at the back of the facility where a short, curly-haired man with watery eyes sat cross-legged on a shabby mat that proclaimed 'Welcome!' in pale red letters with a matching faded cherry. His eyes were closed in meditation. The angel looked up as the hunter approached.

"Welcome," he said peacefully, but there was something nasty lurking in his gaze.

Dean scowled. "You can save the humble-pie Jesus routine for somebody who gives a damn," he snapped.

Metatron shook his head. "The problem with you, Dean, is the cynicism. Always with the cynicism. But most people – even the real belly crawlers living in filth . . . Or Brentwood . . . They don't want to be cynical. They just want something to believe in. Like your dead girlfriend here." He snapped his fingers, and Faith was once again visible. The angel gave an exasperated sigh. "Did you really think I wouldn't notice her?"

"Dean –"

"Shoo." Metatron snapped his fingers a second time, and the ghost disappeared entirely, banished back to the Veil. "Now, as I was saying," he continued, ignoring the flash of fury in the hunter's green eyes, "your little dead girlfriend wants something to believe in as much as the rest of these people. It's obvious that she's chosen you – a foolish move on her part – but as for the others . . ." He grinned. "They've chosen me."

* * *

Damn damn double damn. No, no, no, no. This was not the time to be stuck in the g-ddamn frakking Veil. Faith howled, a primal, animal sound, and reached out for the slender thread that connected her to the turquoise cross still safely buttoned away in Dean's chest pocket. She sprinted through the icy mists of the Veil, chasing the faint strand that would lead her back to the man who desperately needed her. The one person that she still gave a damn about. The one thing that mattered.

Faith kept running, stumbling to her knees and getting up, falling and then rising again, scratching and clawing her way past wave after wave of gray fog, until her knees were bloody from the unforgiving ground and her clothes and body were soaked through to the bone from the damp air. Run as she might, the way out remained hidden from her. Something was blocking her, keeping her from manifesting.

The Slayer bared her teeth in an unholy snarl. Metatron. Scribe of God or not, when she laid hands on that damn angel, she was going to rip out his still-beating heart. She would tear the heart out of his chest and crumble it into a thousand pieces, even if it killed her. She only hoped that she could get to him in time.

Finally, the block disappeared, and Faith burst out of the Veil and back into the abandoned packing plant. The Slayer froze in place at the horrifying sight that awaited her. Metatron was nowhere to be seen, but Sam Winchester was crouched on the cement floor, cradling his brother in his arms. A ragged scarlet hole gaped in the center of the older man's chest. The ghost reached instinctively for her own collarbone, her fingers curving around the upper edge and pressing down painfully.

"Sammy," gasped Dean, his voice barely audible in the silent room. "Sammy, you got to get out of here before he comes back."

The younger man lowered his brother just long enough to pull his arms out of his shirt sleeves and press the fabric to Dean's wound. "Shh, shh," he babbled, panicked. "Shut up. Just save your energy, all right? Oh, man." He pulled the cloth away momentarily to check the bleeding and then pressed it back into place. "We'll stop the bleeding," he promised. "We'll – we'll get you a doctor or – or I'll find a spell. You're gonna be okay." He held his brother's hand to the shirt, now halfway saturated with blood.

Faith moved around the taller hunter's back, careful not to be seen, and then made herself visible. Dean's green eyes locked on hers, and he swallowed.

"Listen to me," Dean said as firmly as he could manage. He addressed his words to his brother, but he kept his eyes pinned on the dead Slayer. "It's better this way."

"What?" exclaimed Sam.

"The Mark . . ." He was running out of air now. "It's . . . It's making me into something I don't want to be."

"Don't worry about the Mark," Sam said heedlessly. "We'll figure out the Mark later. Just hold on, okay? We're gonna get you some help." Rising to his feet, the hunter slipped his arm under his brother's shoulders. He grabbed Dean around the waist and hauled him up from the concrete floor.

The older man groaned, his face going pale as a sheet. He struggled to keep the bloodied shirt holding pressure against his wound as they made their agonizingly slow way to the door. Faith abandoned visibility, and she darted up in front of the two men, extending her hand, palm flat, until it covered the back of Dean's hand. She pushed his hand harder against the cloth.

"What . . ." The hunter caught his breath and then asked Sam, "What happened to you being okay with this?"

"I lied."

A faint chuckle escaped Dean's lips. "Well. Ain't that a bitch."

They made it another twenty feet before Dean stumbled to a halt. "Sam, hold up," he begged. "Hold up. I got something to say to you."

Sam turned to his older brother, fear and concern mixed equally in his hazel eyes. "What?" The words were almost a croak.

Dean collapsed to his knees, and Sam dropped to the ground, pulling the dying man back into his arms. Gasping for air, Dean slowly lifted his free hand to touch his little brother's cheek. "I'm proud of us," he said on an exhale. His eyes drifted toward the side, and the hand clutching Sam's bloodstained shirt twitched purposefully upward, swiping through the ghost's wrist.

Faith knew he was trying to catch her attention. She concentrated as hard as she could and slipped her fingers in between his, then squeezed his hand.

The hunter's eyelids fluttered closed. "Proud of us."

His hand fell away from Sam's face, and Dean crumpled against his brother's chest. Sam jerked back in horror. "No, no," he mumbled. "Hey, wake up, buddy." He pulled his brother back upright, then took the older man's bloody face in both hands and shook him gently. "Hey. Dean. Dean!"

Slowly, the hunter realized what Faith had already accepted. Dean Winchester was dead. Tears began streaming down Sam's face as he drew his brother's head back to his chest. Sobbing so loud that it echoed off the steel walls of the packing plant, Sam held the dead man as tightly as he could. At length, he lifted his head, took a deep breath, and got to work.

From a slight distance, the Slayer observed as Sam carefully hoisted his brotherover his shoulder and began the long, slow, staggering walk back to the Impala. For the first time since her own death, Faith felt weightless. Her feet seemed to be moving themselves, practically floating above the ground.

Watching the hunter lay the body on the ground, the ghost wondered if she should say something.

_Hi, Sam. It's me. I've been haunting your brother. Maybe now he and I can haunt you together?_ Even in her head, it sounded stupid.

Faith lowered herself onto the cracked asphalt and tugged the collar of her leather jacket closer to her chin. Shifting her knees until she was sitting cross-legged, the Slayer kept her eyes fixed on the back of Sam's too-long hair while he fished in the body's pockets for the keys to the Impala.

With a grunt of effort, the man half-lifted, half-dragged his dead brother into the back seat of the car. It was a long process. Dean Winchester had been neither a short nor a small man. Sam locked his arms around the corpse's chest, underneath the armpits, and hauled him over the leather seats. Tears continued to trail freely down his dirt-streaked cheeks. After all, as far as he knew, there was no one here to judge him now.

Finally, when Sam had his brother's head pillowed on an old junky towel, his face turned up so that it would be visible from the rearview mirror, he closed the door to the backseat and sagged against the gleaming black steel of his brother's car. The hunter wiped his nose on the sleeve of his coat, took two deep shuddering breaths, and stood up. "Okay," he said out loud. "Okay."

As he got behind the wheel, moving with the hesitant stiffness of an rheumatic octogenarian, Faith closed her eyes and relocated to the rear passenger floor board. Careful to remain un-manifested, the ghost drew her knees up to her chin. She sat with her back against the door frame, which put her face within a scanty handful of inches from the bloodied corpse's right shoulder. She reached out with her free hand to trace the stubbled edge of his jaw. Where once touching a human had felt like holding her hands over a bonfire, this body had already begun to cool. Life had gone, taking warmth with it. Her hand fell back to her side.

Faith glanced forward when the Impala's familiar engine grumbled its way into a full-on roar. Sam was still crying, although the waterfall had slowed itself to a trickle.

Funny, that. The Slayer leaned her head against the smooth black cotton-poly of the dead hunter's shoulder. She had imagined this particular moment – or some variation along this theme – over a hundred times since the night she first met a green-eyed stranger in a dumb Western bar. But never once had she imagined this.

Dean Winchester was dead, and she was not devastated or broken or taking the express train to Poltergeist-ville. He was dead, and she didn't feel a damn thing.


	9. Rebirth

* * *

**May 17th, 2016, Lebanon, Kansas, 10:15 p.m.**

Faith lost track of time as she sat huddled in the corner of Dean Winchester's bedroom, her arms locked about her knees. Leaning her head against the cold wall, she watched the body on the bed. The Slayer was waiting for something. What exactly that something was, she could not say. All that she knew was the waiting.

Roughly half an hour ago, Sam had deposited his brother on the bed and hustled away. For a moment, the ghost had considered following him, but she had no real interest in watching him drown his sorrows in whiskey - if her instincts about where he was heading were accurate. Where the Winchesters were concerned, Faith's instincts tended to be fairly reliable. Instead, she remained huddled between the nightstand and the wall until the bedroom door swung open to reveal an irritatingly familiar face.

She could say something. Whatever the heavyset side-burned man in the doorway was here to do, the Slayer could stop him in an instant by running out to the library and warning Sam. And yet, Faith said nothing. She just sat in the corner and watched the demon stroll into the room.

Ignoring her presence, he addressed the motionless corpse. The demon talked for what felt like forever, prattling on about true natures and moons, and then he bent over and placed the donkey jawbone in the dead man's hand.

For a moment, there was silence. The mattress springs creaked. And then something on the bed took in a deep breath. "Crowley."

"Dean."

Faith rose to her feet at the same time that the dead man did. His eyes were completely black. The new demon stretched, shrugged, and then he smirked, the fingers of his right hand clasped tight around the leather-wrapped handle of the First Blade. With his left, he pulled out his wallet and dropped it on the bed.

Next, he undid the breast pocket of his plaid shirt and pulled out the cross necklace, gripping only the chain and careful not to touch the cross itself. He allowed it to fall from his fingers onto the concrete floor then he kicked it under the bed. Walking over to the dresser, he flattened out a crumpled receipt and grabbed a pen. When he had finished scribbling, the black-eyed demon dropped the receipt on top of the wrinkled bedcovers.

"Come on," he said to Crowley, stepping away from the ghost and the bed and everything that had been Dean Winchester. "Let's go howl at that moon."

He moved out into the hallway, just a few steps behind the King of Hell. But as Dean crossed over the threshold, he glanced back over his shoulder, his black eyes staring coldly into Faith's corner as if he knew exactly where she was. His smirk widening, the demon winked once - and then he was gone.

* * *

**June 13th, 2016, Lebanon, Kansas**

Gone. It had been almost a month, and still his brother was gone. Dean had disappeared, leaving nothing behind except for a note, his cell phone, and an extremely messy room. Since then, Sam had exhausted every resource that he could think of; his shoulder was dislocated; and Castiel was out for the count thanks to his fading grace. All in all, the hunter had nothing.

He walked back into his brother's bedroom for what was perhaps the hundredth time. The hunter's eyes swept the floor, from the still-rumpled pile of clothes beside the nightstand to the dust that had already begun to collect. Something gleaming just under the bed caught his eye. Careful not to jar his shoulder, Sam slowly lowered himself to the ground and reached underneath the box springs. His outstretched hand closed around a thin chain, and he tugged it out into the electric light.

Rising to his knees, Sam recognized his new find instantly. It was the turquoise cross that Faith had used to wear every now and then, the one that his brother had kept like a touchstone in the Impala for the first few months after the Slayer's death. Sam had wondered what happened to the necklace after Dean had taken it down. Now, he knew.

He gazed down at the piece of jewelry. Its presence was just another example of his older brother's inability to confide in anyone other than himself. For months and months, it had been clear to Sam that Dean was struggling to accept the Slayer's death. If only his brother had talked to him . . . maybe they could have gotten through the last year together instead of being constantly at cross-purposes. Gritting his teeth in frustration, Sam clenched the pendant in his hand.

The room grew colder, the lights flickered overhead, and then someone cleared their throat behind him. "Hey, Sam."

In one move, the hunter leapt to his feet and spun around one hundred and eighty degrees. "Faith?" he gasped in a strangled tone, staring in incomprehension at the pale woman in dark jeans and a darker leather jacket, her face and hair liberally streaked with globs of grayish green goop.

Shifting her weight awkwardly from one foot to the other, the woman glanced at her boots and then met his eyes. "Fancy seeing you around here," she tried for a casual air.

Finally recovering from his shock, Sam combined the temperature with the fritzing electricity and now Faith's appearance and arrived at the only logical conclusion. His brother's erratic behavior was at last beginning to make some kind of sense. "How . . . how long have you been a ghost?"

"About a year," she confessed.

"Did Dean know?"

Faith gave him an unamused look. What do you think? her expression asked. Still, the ghost did him the courtesy of an actual answer. "Yeah," she said quietly. "Dean knew."

"Oh." The hunter filed that particular piece of information away. He wished that he could say this was the first or the longest time that his brother had kept an important secret from him. Unfortunately, with his family being what it was, this was just one of many. "Did he – " Sam hesitated, then went on, "did Dean ever mention . . . do you know anything about the Mark of Cain?"

"He said enough." The ghost did not go into detail or mention Crowley.

"I've got to get him back – we've got to get him back," amended Sam as a new idea struck him. Mere moments ago, he had been entirely resourceless. He could not find his brother, not until a new lead showed up. But Faith . . . Faith had always displayed the tenacity of a bloodhound where Dean was concerned.

"Mmm." The outline of the ghost flickered, and she grimaced. "Sorry, Sam. It's taking more and more energy to do this these days. The Veil . . ." her voice trailed away. "I'll see you soon?"

"Sure," he said distractedly. Sam had already thought of three books that he needed to consult as soon as possible. "Faith?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm glad you're here."

The hunter was too lost in thought to notice the suspicious look that the ghost sent his away.

"Thanks," mumbled Faith dubiously, before disappearing.

* * *

**June 16th, 2016, Lebanon, Kansas**

The next time that Faith broke through the apathy of the Veil to manifest, she found herself in the same work room where Dean had threatened her in the past, first with flame and then with the Hell-box. Sam had scrawled runes all across the heavy oaken table, the arcane writing wriggling and writhing its way around a copper bowl filled with smoldering herbs. Even as a ghost, the Slayer caught a snootful of sage and sneezed.

"What are you doing?" she asked warily.

Sam turned on his heel to see her. If he was surprised, he did not show it. "I'm bringing you back," he informed her.

The Slayer threw back her head and laughed, cold and unamused. She vanished and then reappeared on the far side of the table. "I'm dust. Remember, Samwise? Y'all had B toss my ashes off a bridge. I was dust and ashes . . . guess now I'm just some soggy sediment in the belly of a fish. Either way, you ain't bringing me back, honey."

"I know about the ashes," admitted Sam. It was part of why it had taken him seventy-two hours to begin the restoration rituals. He had spent all night and the better part of a day researching non-angelic and non-demonic resurrection and another two days tracking down the more esoteric ingredients. "Which is why this might take a few tries. But I'm not gonna give up. I need you."

Narrowing her eyes in suspicion, the Slayer demanded, "What for?"

"To help me get Dean back."

"Didn't you read the damn note?" Faith scoffed. "He doesn't want to come back. He wants you to leave him alone, Sam, and he's got that Blade that can kill anything. So you know what I'd do? I'd leave him be."

"I need to save him."

In the face of such denial, there was nothing that the ghost could do but throw up her hands in exasperation. "Damn it, Sam! Your brother doesn't want to be saved. Let him go," she urged.

Sam attempted to change the subject. "You've got more energy today."

"Because I'm pissed," answered the Slayer shortly. In a more serious voice, she continued, "Sam, I'm telling you that this is a bad idea. Quit chasing Dean, and leave me alone."

"I'm sorry." He even sounded regretful. "I just can't do that. Dean's never given up on me, and I'm not giving up on him."

"Your funeral," said Faith, lapsing into a resentful sulk.

* * *

**June 17th, 2016, Lebanon, Kansas, 8:30 a.m.**

If Dean had not been a demon, and if he was still checking his email account, and if the ghost had had the fine motor control to send emails, the email that she would have been drafting while watching Sam's multiple attempts to resurrect her would have been a doozy. While he tried and failed ritual after ritual, Faith drafted email after acerbic email in her head.

. . . .

_Dear Dean,_

_Your brother is a jackass with clay instead of ears and jello instead of brains. Was he dropped on his head as a baby? Why the hell can't he listen to a single piece of advice? And why the hell didn't you ditch his ass years ago? Oh, right. The whole 'family comes first' business._

_Damn it, Dean. If you'd - if I'd - maybe we could have avoided this whole damn thing._

_. . . ._

_Dear Dean,_

_I just watched your brother sacrifice a guinea pig and catch the blood with the tray that you used for heating lead to make bullets. On a scale of 'borrowing clothes without asking' to 'joyriding in your car,', where does this fall on the scale of sibling trespasses?_

_. . . ._

_Dear Dean,_

_I hope you're having fun with Crowley. Sam makes for worse company than Buffy immediately post-break up. He won't even let me play music in here. I don't think he's eaten a solid meal since you died. Or slept anywhere near enough. Wonder if he's doing stims?_

_Hey - you think your brother would ever try meth? What? It was just a question. Jeez, dude._

_. . . ._

_Dear Dean,_

_Apparently the whole 'black-eyed' thing comes with a drop in IQ. Did you seriously think that a frigging note would be enough to deter your bull-headed brother?_

_If you were going to leave the damn necklace, you could have at least, I don't know, shoved it into a pair of dirty socks in the laundry basket? Or buried it in the bag of pork rinds that you keep hidden from Sam in your underwear drawer? Or, even melted the damn thing down?_

_Honestly, I'm starting to feel like you got the better end of this deal. Howling at the moon sounds a hell of a lot better than this._

_. . . ._

_Dean –_

_You owe me for putting up with this cap. I haven't quite decided what you owe me yet, but don't worry - it'll be expensive and incredibly high proof. Like Everclear but ten thousand times classier._

_And if I still can't drink it, you're gonna drink the whole thing and give yourself a fricking crazy hangover. And then I'm going to play that damn chipmunk Christmas song on repeat for at least an hour._

_Why? Because. You. Owe. Me._

_. . . ._

"I told you this was a bad idea," the Slayer observed, crossing her arms over her stomach and frowning at the charred remnants of Sam's latest spell-casting attempt.

The hunter looked up from the empty flask of enchanted blood which he had poured into the copper brazier seconds before everything had gone up in flames. Faith rather suspected that the blood had been Vino de Madre, similar to the stuff that Willow used in her resurrection rituals, but with the substitution of guinea pig for a fawn.

"What is your problem?" snapped Sam, brushing ash and congealed blood away off his forehead with the back of his wrist.

"I told you," Faith repeated for what felt like the millionth time. "I was scattered in tiny pieces over the San Francisco Bay. That ritual – and the four before it – only work if you have the entire body."

"And I told you, I'm not giving up on this."

Quieting the urge to knock him unconscious, the ghost rolled her eyes. "Fine. Just don't blame me the next time things explode and you take all the skin off your face."

"I don't get you." The struggle for composure was obvious in the tense line of the man's jaw. "You've always been . . . I dunno . . . so protective of my brother. And now, when he actually needs you, you don't want anything to do with it. What the hell's that about, Faith?"

"Give me a break," retorted the Slayer. "Dean doesn't need me. Dean doesn't need anything. He's just fine on his own. Only reason I was sticking around here instead of reliving my greatest hits in the Veil was to watch his back. But now he's got the Mark of Cain and the First Blade - dude's indestructible, and he sure as hell doesn't need either one of us chasing after him."

"That's not true," insisted Sam, something akin to doubt growing in his eyes.

Faith huffed angrily. "Just because you don't want to accept it doesn't make it not true, Sammy." She paused, considering her options. They could end all of this once and for all, if she just slipped inside the hunter's body and threw the damn necklace on the fire herself. Or she could knock him unconscious and earn herself a little bit of a reprieve.

In the end, however, the ghost only ran a hand through her goopy hair. Fifteen months in the grave, and somehow the Fyarl mucus never, ever dried. "Do whatever you want, man. Honestly, I just don't care anymore."

Accepting reluctant capitulation as agreement, Sam shoved his hands into two ragged kitchen mitts lying on the table and lifted the still-smoldering brazier. He dumped its smelly contents into the industrial-sized steel sink on the right-hand wall and began to wash the bowl clean. "We'll get him back," he repeated himself. "I promise. Things will get better. You'll see."

The ghost neglected to reply. Having reached her saturation point for the never-ending Winchester Junior shenanigans, she retreated to the relative peace and quiet of the Veil, at this point her only refuge. The Slayer laughed at her own self-pity. If this wasn't pathetic, she didn't know what was.

* * *

**June 19th, 2016, Lebanon, Kansas, 12:45 p.m.**

Time passed, unquantifiable as always inside the Veil, but far too soon for Faith's liking, she felt herself being dragged back out of her numb fog. This passage through the Veil was different from the many that had come before. Instead of pain, she felt uncomfortably stretched in every direction - up, down, left, right, forward, back - until at last her ears popped and she hurtled past the final mists separating her from the Technicolor world of angst that was Winchester Central.

Opening her eyes, the Slayer prepared to toss out a properly biting insult, and then she realized that something . . . something had changed. She could feel the concrete floor, achingly cold, beneath her bare feet. Brown eyes widening in horror, Faith looked down. She wasn't wearing a stitch. Her clothes were gone, and so, too, was the Fyarl snot that had been accessorizing her hair for the last sixteen months.

Across the work room, Sam was kneeling outside a summoning circle outlined in white chalk and a series of occult symbols that Faith did not recognize. Three items had been placed in the center of the circle: a pottery bowl containing darkened earth; a blue and green speckled egg, far too large to be from a chicken, but not quite ostrich-sized, either; and an old photo that had gone ragged around the edges. Just outside the circle was positioned a hairbrush and a shaving razor, both of which Faith vaguely thought might have belonged to Dean. Sam dangled the cross necklace in one hand, his eyes shut tight as he swung the chain in small circles above the brush and the razor.

The woman took a step forward to get a closer look at the picture, silently marveling at the feeling of actual ground under her toes. As she approached, she recognized the photo. It was a copy of the one that Dean had mailed her once for her birthday - the Slayer passed out in an army sleeping bag, her arm wrapped around an also-slumbering beagle. Frowning, the Slayer noticed a new sensation, one previously masked by the weird feelings of being corporeal again. Somewhere behind her sternum, something tightened and tugged her towards the eastern wall of the room.

The hunter continued intoning the words of an incantation, his voice low and monotone. Eyes closed, he had yet to notice the Slayer. "And having fulfilled the quest, having found that which you seek, you will return with - "

That was enough of that. Faith leaned forward and clocked him good on the side of the head. Sam went down like a felled oak, face first into the weird egg. The weight of his head cracked it open with a hiss, and an off-white gluey substance spread across the floor.

"Great." Careful not to get any of the egg's insides on her skin, the woman bent over and ripped the necklace out of his hand. She slipped the chain over her head and then rummaged in the hunter's pockets for his wallet. Faith took out three credit cards and all the remaining cash. "Cheers."

Money in hand, she high-tailed it back down the tiled halls to Dean's room. After shoving the door open, she threw on a pair of sweatpants, drawing the strings at the waist as tight as she could, and wriggled into a black t-shirt. The hunter had one shredded pair of flip-flops, which were at least three sizes too big, but Faith had no other options. She slipped her feet through the straps and held onto the rubber soles with her toes. Then, she ransacked Dean's dresser until she found what she was looking for – one of the fake IDs he had made for her years ago that she had never used.

Finally, Faith gave into the heartburn that was pulling her in an strange direction. She removed the flip-flops and sprinted barefoot through the bunker until she reached the garage. Tossing the shoes across the bench seat of an ancient pickup, the Slayer scrambled up into the cab and took off like a bat out of hell.

The woman drove as fast as she could coax the old engine to go. At the first decent-sized town that she reached, she parked outside a Walmart and spent five hundred dollars on a Slayer's bag full of essentials – clothes, toiletries, alcohol – before changing in the parking lot and quickly hitting up the only two high-end shops in town, where she blew through another two thousand on the credit card to get herself some decent clothes that actually fit.

Her shopping completed, she gave the cards to three teenagers standing outside a local diner and stole a car that somewhere left running at the closest gas station. Faith sped off south and east, following the call of the geas that Sam had placed on her. While she had been replenishing her supplies, the heartburn had migrated up to her skull, and the migraine it caused was almost making her see double. After dry-swallowing three ibuprofen, she grit her teeth and turned the radio up to full blast.

The Slayer glanced into the shotgun seat, where her new duffle was sitting along with her favorites of the new purchases and the last thing she had nicked out of Dean's bedroom: a semi-automatic pistol, a Bowie knife with a wicked sharp edge, and the angel blade that the hunter had kept in his dresser. None of these would do any good against her quarry, all hyped up as he was on Mark of Cain juice, but she'd be able to handle anything else that tried to get in her way.

Faith reached for the bottle of Bourbon in the center console and ripped the cork out with her teeth, before spitting the stopper out the open window and pouring a large shot down her throat. Wiping her mouth on the inside of her wrist, the woman used her new boots to push the accelerator down to the floorboards.

One Winchester handled, one Winchester to go.

* * *

**June 20th, 2016, Dothan, Alabama, 9:30 p.m.**

"Hey, boys."

Dean knew that voice. He swiveled in his chair to meet a pair of blazing brown eyes set over crimson lips. He dragged his gaze along the length of the newcomer's body, taking in the faint scars on the left side of her neck; the silver halter top with an open back that scooped all the way down to the waistband of her red leather pants, which clung to every muscle and curve; and the black leather jacket draped across one arm.

Turning sideways, she slipped between the two demons' chairs and lifted the glass of tequila in front of Dean off the counter. She downed it in one go, then gestured to the bartender. "Shots of whiskey for me and my friends here. And a cheeseburger - with bacon." Faith glanced over one bare shoulder at Crowley. "He's paying." Next, she elbowed the taller demon in the ribs. "Scoot over, lumberjack."

Dean finally unglued his tongue from the roof of his mouth. "Wondered if you would show up," he said calmly in a voice filled with even more gravel than usual. The demon slid down from his barstool, directly into the woman's personal space. He towered over her, his knees knocking against her legs, his coal-black eyes burning a hole in her skin. As Dean blinked at her, for a moment his black eyes flickered to green. "You want to take this outside?" His tone was dark with suggestion.

"We could do that," mused Faith. She slid her hand between the folds of her leather jacket and drew it back to reveal fingers wrapped tightly around the silver hilt of an angel blade. "We could go out in some back alley, throw down in the rain. Find out once and for all which one of us's got the bigger stones. Maybe I'd even let you beat me," she ended the last word on a breathy whisper, leaning in until her mouth was inches from his.

Behind her, Crowley cleared his throat to remind them of his presence.

Chuckling dryly, Faith stepped backwards. "But you know what, boys? All I want is my cheeseburger, a six-pack of beer, and to get rid of this damn spell."

The King of Hell perked up at this. "Spell?"

"Yeah." Turning to face the older demon, Faith continued, "You mind if we dispense with all the posturing and dick-measuring? Let's think of this more as a business meeting."

Crowley glanced over the top of her head to Dean, who was looking down at the Slayer with frank amusement, his open hand extended towards her wrist which held the angel blade. Sensing the King of Hell's gaze, the former hunter looked up until he met the other demon's gaze, and he nodded once.

Dean shoved his barstool in the Slayer's direction, then he pulled the empty stool on his other side closer. Unconcerned about being hemmed in by two demons, Faith breezily boosted herself up onto the tall seat.

"So how did Sam do it?" asked the black-eyed demon conversationally, tossing back his shot of whiskey and signaling for another.

"You seem pretty sure that it was him."

"Who else besides my brain-trust brother would think it's a good idea to resurrect a dead Slayer?"

"A question that I've been asking myself constantly." Faith drank her own shot. "I'm fuzzy on the exact details, but there was some kind of demon egg involved. Anyway, one minute I was all loose and floaty in that God-awful Veil reminiscing about Van Halen's greatest hits. Next thing I know, I'm being forced back into this," she gestured to her body, "and your psycho brother's putting a damn geas on me to find you. Think he was gonna compel me to bring you back to him, but I punched his lights out before he could finish. Not a huge fan of compulsions." She grumbled the last sentence under her breath.

"Well, you found me." Dean held his hands up in a 'here I am' gesture. "You here to bring me in, sheriff?" he drawled. "Or now that your heart's all beating again, you looking to call your blonde girlfriend and re-enlist with her Girl Scouts?"

Faith ignored him, keeping her attention focused on Crowley. "I'm not out to ruin any bachelor parties or change anyone's eye color. Just need the geas lifted."

The King of Hell surveyed her over the rim of his shot glass. "You want to make a deal?"

"Not a fan of deals, either." In half an instant, Faith had the angel blade jammed against Crowley's gut and her Bowie knife poised over Dean's groin, both of them hidden below the level of the bar. She lowered her voice to a quiet snarl. "You lift the geas, and I'll leave you alone. Don't lift it, and I'll be your little shadow for the rest of time - living or dead. You think Samantha's annoying? Baby bro's nothing compared to me."

Deliberating over his response, Crowley took a moment to observe the Slayer's stance. She was alert, aware, halfway tensed up, but the amused gleam in her eyes prompted him to speculation. This Slayer could be an interesting Slayer. Those who came back from the dead tended to come back . . . different.

"Well," he said as the bartender set a cheeseburger the size of a dinner plate in front of Faith and she flashed him a smile filled with promises. "I suppose I could be of assistance," purred Crowley smoothly. He watched as Dean's eyes flitted from Faith to the red-headed waitress he had been chatting up earlier and back to Faith again. "Dean?"

The black-eyed demon hesitated, a series of thoughts and images flashing through his head. When the Slayer first stepped into the bar, he had been entirely set on kicking her ass to kingdom come, but now . . . in those pants and that sorry excuse for a shirt, his mind was spinning out down another road entirely.

Much as he had spent the last few weeks forgetting all the ridiculously over-emotional crap that had dominated his life with his brother, much as he resolutely did not give a damn anymore about the woman in front of him – how she had lived or how she had died or how she had spent her afterlife – his body remembered. Remembered lazy days and moonlit nights and the end of the world. Remembered how that body of hers, all encased in leather now, had fit so well and moved so wonderfully against his own.

It was the last thing that Dean wanted. He was finished with everything from his life leading up to the moment that Metatron had ended it. He was howling at the moon now. Howling – and occasionally ending whichever of Abbadon's devotees attempted to make one last show of devotion by attempting to eliminate him.

But the Slayer had always been exceptionally good at howling, his body reminded him unhelpfully, as a few more of Dean's memories trickled through the carefully crafted wall that had been erected to keep them out.

"Why the hell not?" Dean mused, his eyes slowly tracking down the line of the Slayer's spine to where it disappeared beneath the red leather of her trousers.

"Great." Faith lowered her knives and began devouring her cheeseburger with almost indecent eagerness. She demolished it in ten quick bites, then washed the sandwich down with a long swig from the bottle of beer that the grinning bartender pushed across the scuffed wooden counter towards her. "Come on," she said, hopping down from her barstool and sliding her arms into the sleeves of her leather jacket. "We should probably hurry. I've got a feeling your idiot little bro put a tracking spell on me, too."

The demons instantly rose to their feet. Dean grabbed her by the upper arm, his fingers tightening painfully around her bicep.

"You maybe should have led with that," he growled.

Faith shrugged, her smile wide, her eyes cold. "Oops." She glanced back at Crowley. "I assume we're going to need privacy for this?"

"We've got a room upstairs upstairs." Crowley jerked his head towards a dingy stairwell in the far corner of the bar. He was in no real mood to encounter the Moose. Not yet, not when the pieces were all still moving. "We'll start there."

With Faith and Dean following close behind, he led the way across the crowded dance floor. The black-eyed demon kept a tight hold on the Slayer's arm as they ascended the creaky wooden stairs to a narrow hallway with a stained red floor runner that smelled faintly of mildew. Crowley pushed open the third door on the right and entered the grungy motel room.

Faith raised her eyebrows at the sight of the two unmade queen beds and the scattered bits of clothing strewn across the faded shag carpet. "Nice place," she commented sardonically.

"Stuff it, princess," snapped Dean.

"Princess, huh? Your pet names've moved a step up in the world."

"If you two would postpone the bickering . . ."

The Slayer jerked herself free from the demon's hold. "Sure thing, Crowley," she said, suddenly businesslike. "Where do you want to start?"

"Lay down." The King of Hell nodded towards the closest bed.

Faith paused. For the first time, she appeared hesitant. Then, resolving to continue, she flopped onto the bed that Crowley had indicated, folding her arms beneath her head and crossing her boots at the ankles. "Let's do this."

"Fair warning, this will hurt." He set his palm on the Slayer's forehead. Her eyes went blank, and her limbs slackened as she slipped into unconsciousness. Satisfied, Crowley took a step away from the bed and turned to Dean.

The black-eyed demon raised his eyebrows. "What's the hold-up?" he asked. "If she's right and Sam's tracking her, we need to move."

"We?" tested Crowley.

"We," repeated Dean. "You, me, – "

"And the Slayer?" he inquired archly.

"Hardly," Dean scoffed, but it was unconvincing. "She don't work for Sam. But that doesn't mean she works for us."

"I see," murmured the King of Hell, reining in his cynicism. Still, he placed a hand on the center of the Slayer's chest. His irises and sclerae flashed red as he pushed.

Entering the Slayer's mind was almost impossible. He had tried once before, in an attempt to slip inside and possess her, only to be blocked by the magic of a demon race far older than he. Kakistos had chosen his victims with malicious purpose, and even in death the goat-hoofed glutton had left bars of iron that would trap anyone else who tried to claim her. Crowley very much doubted that the Slayer had had any idea of what she was getting herself into when she acquired that barbed wire tattoo of hers.

For a long moment, he did not attempt to slip past the bars. He merely looked. There, deep inside the heart of her, Crowley could see that the soul was tethered loosely to the body. The body itself seemed to be barely held together by strings of silver-colored light that wrapped around the woman from the top of her skull to her heels, spiraling in bands of silver fire that criss-crossed their way across her skin. One strand extended from her head to her heart and then sprang outwards in the direction of Dean. Another stretched from her head out into the air around them.

So. He had the geas and he had the tracking spell. Crowley's red eyes narrowed. He took a closer look and then pulled back. "It could be dangerous," he said, purposefully vague. "To clear out whatever your moose of a brother did."

Dean huffed in irritation. "Quit stalling. Let's get this over with."

Crowley smiled. He glanced down at the Slayer one last time and then shoved. Red fire streamed from his hand into the Slayer's chest, arcing across her skin in little bursts of lightning. As he worked, the Slayer's body leapt off the bed. Her head snapped backwards and her mouth opened to scream, but her eyes remained blank and unfocused. Dean's heavy palm clamped down before the woman could do more than inhale.

One by one, the red eradicated the silver, until nothing was left. Nothing but a shell, the vestiges of Kakistos' claim, and the fluttering soul. Crowley pressed his hand harder down against the Slayer's sternum, and ribbons of crimson encircled her, keeping the soul tied down and the body from falling apart.

Sampson had done a rather halfway job. Sooner or later, all dust returned to dust. In this case, it would be a little sooner than expected. Even with Crowley's work. The King of Hell said nothing of this, merely lifted his hand. The Slayer collapsed, limp, on the flowered hospital comforter.

After a while, her eyes opened, and she rolled onto her side, curling into a ball. Groaning, she raised a hand to her forehead to block out the light.

"There," said Crowley. He figured the bonds would hold together for less than three weeks. "All better."

Squinting against the brightness overhead, Faith lowered her hand. She pushed herself off from the bed and staggered slightly, colliding with first Dean and then Crowley before she regained her balance. "Thanks," she said faintly, and she wobbled towards the motel room door. As she pushed the door open, she gave the demons two one-fingered salutes. "Be seeing you, gentlemen."

The Slayer kept up her pretense of weakness until she rounded the final curve of the creaking staircase back down to the main floor of the bar. Faith darted through the crowds of dancing people, unfolding her clenched right fist to reveal the steel car keys that she had swiped off of the black-eyed demon when she bumped into him. The Impala was a far better ride than the old Acura she had picked up outside of Biloxi.

Out in the darkened parking lot, Faith transferred her new navy duffel from the beat-up Acura to the backseat of the Chevy. The car was barely cleaner than the Honda - the floorboards and seats were littered with fast food wrappers, empty beer bottles, and unwashed clothing. But it would be all right.

She shifted the Impala into reverse and backed out of the parking lot. The way she figured it, she had maybe fifteen minutes tops before Dean realized that she had filched his keys. As she sped off towards the entrance ramp for the Interstate, Faith grinned. She could get awfully far away in fifteen minutes.

* * *

For half an instant, when she woke up hog-tied in the hot, dark compressed space with the roaring of an engine all round her, Faith considered panicking. But then she remembered red eyes appearing in her rearview mirror and smarmy British voice snarking in her ear, and she recognized the familiar rumble of the Chevy. Fan-damn-tastic. She was in the trunk.

Someone had stretched her legs out as much as possible in the cramped space and braced her back with what felt like a couple of duffel bags to keep her from rolling. The zip ties around her wrists and ankles were securely tight, not cruelly so. If Dean and Crowley were bothering this much about things, they weren't going to kill her without some kind of build-up.

Not that Faith would have minded too much if they did. She wasn't opposed to death, not if death meant the end. Or if she could go to the same kind of heaven that Buffy went to. Although she didn't fancy being a ghost again, she still wasn't sure how much she fancied being alive.

In the stifling airlessness of the trunk, she nestled her back closer against the duffel bags until she had worked her shoulders and neck into a more comfortable angle. Sure, if she felt like taking half the skin off her wrists, she could probably bust loose from the zip ties, kick out the tail lights, slam her heels into the trunk lid, and do a barrel roll across the asphalt. If there wasn't a car tailing the Impala too closely, she might even survive.

Instead, the Slayer twitched her nose and ran her tongue around the edges of her teeth. If Crowley and company wanted to kill her, it would be a lot less tedious than road rash and playing a speed bump. Probably faster, too. Faith relaxed, her eyelids fluttering closed. In moments, she was asleep.

* * *

**June 21st, 2016, Naples, Florida, 8:30 a.m.**

The trunk creaked open, and a blast of overheated sunlight struck Faith in the face. Wincing, she opened her eyes to a tall shadow backlit by the sun.

"Up," said the shadow gruffly. He leaned in, grabbed her under the armpits, and dragged the Slayer out of the trunk. She stayed still in his grasp without protesting, her brown eyes fixed steadily on the expressionless face staring back at her.

The demon tugged until her legs slid over the steel lip of the trunk, and then he leaned her up against the back bumper. Faith grimaced as her leather trousers came into contact with the steaming metal. She glanced around them. He had pulled the car off along some access road, surrounded by groves and groves of trees. Somewhere beyond the woods, she could hear the faint roar of the highway.

After setting her down, Dean took a half-step back and folded his arms across his stomach. "You got my attention."

"Wasn't looking for your attention." The words scratched against the dryness of her throat. "Where are we?"

"Naples, Florida. Give or take a few miles," he shrugged.

"Where's Crowley?"

"He had a few last-minute things to wrap up back in Dothan. He'll be around later. 'Sides, seems like you and I're well overdue for a little talk."

"Didn't think you'd still be into all that armchair psychology business."

"I'm not," said Dean, frowning. "I'm done with all of it – the guilt, the sorrow, all that weight of the world crap. I'm done being responsible for everyone else's shitty decisions. What happened to you? Yeah, sure, dying sucks, but that wasn't my fault. So living or dead, you'd better get the hell over it and quit bothering me. Get outta here while you can," he warned her.

The ghost snorted. "One, I can't go anywhere until you cut the damn plastic." She shoved her zip-tied fists out in his direction. "Two, of course the Fyarl demon wasn't your fault. Just a combo of bad timing and even worse luck."

Dean narrowed his eyes. "So then why'd you steal my car?"

"Why'd you track me down?" Faith countered. "You've been trashing the Impala. You can't pull all that 'it's my baby, so I had to come rescue her' crap and expect me to believe it."

Not bothering to answer, Dean withdrew a switchblade from the pocket of his worn jeans and flicked it open. Faith watched the four-inch blade out of the corner of her eyes as the demon moved back into her personal space.

"Hold still," he warned unnecessarily, dropping to one knee in front of her.

Faith did not move an inch as the demon slipped the blade of the knife between her ankles and the tough white plastic of the zip tie and jerked upwards. Then he rose to his feet and did the same to the tie around her wrists.

The Slayer rubbed at the skin where the zip ties had been – more out of habit than anything else. They hadn't bound her tightly enough to hurt. She looked up from her hands to the demon's dark t-shirt and finally up into his stubbled face and the harsh glare of sunlight.

"I really was just after the car," she said quietly. "Look, Dean, you're done with the white hat hunting stuff. So'm I. I'm not headed for Sam or for Buffy or for any of that. I just wanted to see the country – never got around to it last time I was alive."

She exhaled. "Was headed for the world's largest rubber band ball out in Lauderhill before y'all caught up with me. It's like seven feet tall, four and a half tons . . ."

The demon rocked back onto his heels. "You really aren't afraid of me," he observed aloud.

"No," Faith replied flatly, finger-combing her hair back into a ponytail.

"I might still kill you."

"Yep." The Slayer pulled the black hair elastic off of her left wrist.

"You don't really care."

She shook her head. "Nope."

Dean sucked his teeth, then said, "Saw a sign for a diner not too far from here. You hungry?"

The dead woman secured her ponytail and gave her hair an experimental toss. "Sure," she said with the ghost of a smile.  "I could eat."


	10. Adventures in Hedony

* * *

**June 21st, 2016, Naples, Florida, 9:45 a.m.**

Dean wasn't entirely sure what to think of this new and improved version of the Slayer. Over breakfast (pancakes and sausages for him, waffles and bacon for her, coffee for both), she picked his brain about the movies and politics that she had missed during her stint in the Veil, all the while guzzling down cup after cup of coffee and making eyes at the scruffy co-ed waiter.

When the plates were cleared, the Slayer snuck off into the bathroom just as the check arrived. She emerged ten minutes later having exchanged her leather and spangles for a pair of bootcut jeans and a red tank top. The straying hairs at her forehead had been slicked down with water, and her ponytail sat jauntier at the back of her skull.

Raising his eyebrows, the demon taunted her, "Not feeling the 'walk of shame' look?"

Faith slung the strap to her bag up and over her shoulder. "Not all of us wear it as well as you do," she snarked back as she dug a crumpled one-dollar bill out of her pocket and dropped it onto the orange plastic table top.

"This," Dean gestured to his red and black plaid shirt, "ain't the morning after. Thanks to you, I didn't get no night before."

"Sorry," said the woman half-heartedly, taking a final swig from her coffee cup and then setting it back down on the table. "Lemme guess - was it gonna be that redheaded chick three seats down at the bar?"

He smirked and followed her towards the exit.. "Maybe. Hadn't made up my mind just yet."

"We-ell. Is every night Unattached Drifter Christmas these days?"

Dean's smile widened. He held the glass door to the diner open for her, his eyes tracking down her hips to better appreciate the lines of her jeans. "Night, day, morning, afternoon - take your pick. Hell, it's more than Christmas. It's a Rumspringa."

"Clever."

"I thought so." Positively preening with self-satisfaction, the demon slid behind the wheel of his car and began pulling out of the parking lot. "Which way to your red rubber ball?"

"Rubber band ball," the Slayer corrected him. "And take a left - back toward the highway."

"Got it."

They lapsed into silence for the next mile and a half, before Faith grew exasperated with the quiet and started to fiddle with the radio dial.

"Top Forty? Really?" commented the demon skeptically.

"You got a problem with that?" she countered.

Radio selections were not something that Dean felt like picking a fight over. "Nah," he said. "Just doesn't seem like your kind of thing, is all."

Apparently, this had not been the right thing to say, because the Slayer slammed her hand down on the volume dial, and the music stopped.

"You really think you know what my kinda thing is?" Faith asked with far too much sweetness in her voice.

"You really think I don't?" retorted the demon without heat. "Newsflash, sweetheart: nothing's changed up here but the guilt." He tapped at his temple as he spoke. "You may be zombie girl and I may be a Knight of Hell now, but I ain't forgotten a single thing."

"Is Zombie Girl seriously the best that you can come up with?" mused the Slayer, momentarily distracted.

He grinned in amusement. "Oh, I'm just getting started."

"Whatever." Closing her eyes, Faith tilted her head against the leather seat and yawned. "Wake me up when we get to the rubber bands?"

"What, I'm your chauffeur now?"

The Slayer pried one eye open and squinted at him. "You _are_ a knight," she pointed out innocently. "Isn't it your job to ferry helpless young damsels to and fro?"

The demon snorted. "You're about the furthest thing from helpless."

"Damn straight," said a pleased Faith. "Look, how's this: you drive, and I'll pay for the entry fee to see the ball. With Sam's money, of course."

"Works for me."

* * *

**June 21st, Lauderhill, Florida, 11:00 a.m.**

"They sure don't make world records like they used to," mused Faith with a world-weary sigh as she completed her third circuit of the nearly eight-foot tall ball, wrapped in stretches of blue, white, and green elastic rubber six inches thick.

"Huh," said the demon at her side noncommittally. Preoccupied with his own thoughts, he had barely spared the rubber band ball more than a single glance. He needed to come to a decision about the woman walking next to him, but that felt far too much like effort at the moment.

Content to continue monologuing, the Slayer observed, "Used to be, the records were all world's smallest horse or world's oldest woman or world's longest fingernails . . ." Her voice trailed away suggestively.

This last caught his attention. "That is disgusting."

"As if you didn't have the people section of Guinness memorized when you were twelve."

"You're confusing your Winchesters again." he corrected her. "That was Sam."

"Oh." Faith grimaced and changed the subject. "Want to check out the gift shop?"

"They have a gift shop?" asked Dean, more than a little surprised.

"It's America, dumbass." She nudged his shoulder with her own. "Of course they have a gift shop."

"Just for that, you can buy me lunch."

The Slayer made a point of tugging the wallet out of her pocket and opening it to show a single faded five dollar bill. "After the tickets to get into here, I'm pretty sure I don't got enough to fill that empty gullet of yours."

Uninterested in letting her off the hook that easy, Dean shrugged. "Guess you'll just have to earn some then."

"You suggesting I turn tricks?" The Slayer's tone was playful, but an edge of steel glinted beneath it. "Because I know you know what I think about that idea."

To be honest, he had not meant that at all, but instead of apologizing he carried on with the misunderstanding. "I thought you didn't care about stuff like that anymore."

Faith froze in her tracks halfway down the dirt path that led from the rubber band ball to the wooden shed that served as a gift shop. She stepped in front of the demon, forcing him to a halt. "Dude, are you hangry or pissy or what? You always this passive-aggressive?"

"Not passive," said Dean with an unfriendly grin. "Just aggressive. I don't do well with stupid," he reminded her.

"I'm not being stupid." The Slayer poked him in the notch above his sternum, her finger pressing uncomfortably firm against his windpipe. "You're being a jackass."

Brushing her hand away, the demon shouldered her out of his way. "I meant poker, okay?" he admitted. "Not prostitution." It was the closest that he could bring himself to an apology. No point in alienating the Slayer. Not before he had reached his decision about her usefulness.

Faith recognized an olive branch when she heard one. "I could do poker." She fell back into step beside him. "Is your local yokel act not working anymore?"

"No."

"Huh." The Slayer lowered her voice so that the middle-aged couple leaving the gift shop could not hear them. "I guess animals can always spot their predator, then."

After a charming smile at the other rubber band patrons, Dean followed Faith inside the cramped shed, its tipsy shelves filled with kitschy rubber band decorations, craft kits for children, and odd books on the history of rubber. "Is that what you think I am now, a predator?" He was surprised by how much he wanted to hear the answer.

"No," said Faith thoughtfully, pulling one of the craft kits down from the wobbling shelf and examining the back with interest. The packaging gave directions for constructing one's very own rubber band gun. "You've always been a predator," she continued when it became apparent that he was still waiting for a better response. "Now you just don't feel conflicted about it."

"And you?"

Pursing her lips, the Slayer returned the kit to its place and began running her finger along the spine of the latest edition of _Guinness World Records_ on the shelf above it. "Well, since you've got the immortality thing going on, if you're a wolf, that makes me a coyote - or something."

"You do kinda remind me of a coyote . . . scrappy, flea-ridden, bad teeth . . ." He flicked the end of her ponytail with his middle finger.

Mildly, Faith threatened, "Keep talking, and I'll start knocking out _your_ teeth."

"Okay, okay." Dean reached over her head to better examine a pig made out of pink rubber bands. As he did so, he murmured in a quiet voice, "Don't sell yourself short, Zombie Girl. You're every bit as capable of being an evil, amoral son of a bitch as I am."

The Slayer turned in her book to the records on animals. "Tell me something new, Dean," she grumbled, scanning the blurb on the world's largest dog. "'Cuz I've known that since I was five."

He dropped the pig back onto its shelf. "And that's what I like about you."

"What?" Faith did not bother to look up from reading.

"You never pretended to be one of the angels."

Now, she did look up, but it was only to roll her eyes at him. "Dramatic, much?"

"Maybe." The demon peered over her shoulder at the glossy photo of a Great Dane side by side with a donkey for a size comparison. "You know," he went on, "I was almost surprised when I saw you. Almost, but not quite."

Turning the page to find out more about the world's fattest cat, the Slayer asked, "And why's that?"

"Ashes and dust . . ." Dean gave the woman a speculative glance. "Guess that doesn't mean much when Sammy gets ahold of you."

Faith snapped the book closed and shoved it between two other copies on the shelf. "I never asked him to do resurrect me," she said sharply, elbowing her way past the demon and heading for the exit.

"That's the problem with Sammy. He never really listens to what other people want."

Rocking back onto her heels in the gravel parking lot outside the locked Impala, the Slayer frowned. She waited for him to unlock the car and then she snatched up her duffel bag and retreated away from the Chevy.

"Sorry about this, your Knightlinesss, but I'm gonna have to call our little poker fundraiser off."

"Oh?"

"Whatever game it is that you're playing, with Sam or Crowley or whoever - I don't want any part of it." Her hand tightened on the black strap of the duffel. "I'm done with my old crowd, which means I'm done with yours, too." Faith straightened her shoulders. "So you can drive on, chauffeur. I'll find somebody around here to hitch a ride with."

"You sure?"

"Yeah." The Slayer nodded decisively. "I'm sure."

* * *

"I have some information that concerns you."

"I'm listening."

"The thing you're looking for can be found at 3501 Inverarry Boulevard."

"Why are you giving me this?"

"In honor of _Her_."

"For the Queen."

* * *

**June 21st, 2016, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, 12:40 p.m.**

Hot water coursed down Faith's back, the scalding streams pelting against her shoulders, just a degree shy of being painful. Shutting her eyes tight, the Slayer raked her fingers through her shampooed hair and and tilted her skull backwards to better rinse off her forehead. This was her first shower in sixteen months, and she was going to enjoy every moment of it.

Faith shampooed and conditioned, washed and shaved, and then she clawed the dead skin away from her arms and stomach, her hips and calves, and finally the soles of her feet, leaving scarlet streaks in the wake of her nails. When she finished, she spun the shower dial even further to the right, until the plastic curtain was opaque with condensation and she could barely see through the steam rising around her.

The Slayer endured the nearly-boiling water for another five minutes before shutting off the water and stepping out of the off-white fiberglass tub. After running a towel over her skin and through her dripping hair, she pulled on a pair of heather gray sweatpants and her tank top from earlier. Faith wrapped her hair in the towel and ventured out into the brisk air conditioning of the main hotel room. She had not slept properly since Sam Winchester had dragged her back from the land of the dead - kidnapped naps in the trunks of cars did _not_ count - and all she wanted at the moment was to fall straight into the middle of her king-sized bed and sleep until winter had come and gone.

As she stepped through the bathroom door, her good mood plummeted. Lying in the center of Faith's dreamt-of bed was none other than the demon she had optimistically left behind her two hours before. He had his muddy boots on her clean white covers, and he had the infernal gall to be _smirking_ at her.

Exhaling in exasperation, Faith yanked once at her improvised turban, and her wet hair came tumbling down. "What the hell, dude?" she asked, more exhausted than angry.

Dean wriggled from side to side in an obvious show of making himself comfortable. "Thanks to you, I didn't sleep last night."

"Get up, jackass. That's my bed."

The demon beamed, a trademark Dean Winchester smile that had seduced many a country girl. "Guess we'll have to share then."

Faith tossed her towel over the back of a chair. "I'm not sleeping with you," she warned, accepting that it would be next to impossible for her to get rid of him now.

"Why not?" asked Dean with a jaunty lift of his left eyebrow.

"Not unless you're packing rubbers." The borrowed phrase from Spike slipped out without Faith's noticing it.

Sitting up completely, the demon leaned forward. "Last I checked, dead girls couldn't get pregnant."

"You've been checking?" wondered Faith rhetorically. After a beat of silence, she added, "Either way, you've been running wild with Crowley, and who knows what diseases you've picked up."

"Fair enough." He tugged off first one boot and then the other, dropping them onto the green carpet on the side of the bed.

"Good." The Slayer dropped onto the far side of the bed and swung her legs beneath the covers, sliding an angel blade beneath her pillow as she did so. Rolling over onto her stomach, she mumbled, "Now shut up so I can sleep."

"You're the one who's a fan of pillow talk, not me," Dean reminded her unhelpfully, stretching out on top of the comforter.

"Dean, if you don't shut your pie-hole, I am going to kill you."

"You can't."

She pushed up onto her elbows and gave him a bleary-eyed glare, gesturing to the weapon beneath her pillow. "I can damn sure have a fun time trying. So . . . Shut. It."

Chuckling, the demon winked at her. "I can take a hint," he said playfully.

The Slayer kneed him squarely in the side of his gluteus maximus. "No, you can't. Now be quiet," she ordered.

"Yes, ma'am."

* * *

**June 21st, 2016, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, 1:30 p.m**

The motel room door burst open with a thunderous crash, startling Faith out of her light sleep. She got an eyeful of a dark figure in the doorway and the silver glint of a knife in its hands. That was enough proof of ill intentions for her. In the same instant that she saw his weapon, she hurled her angel blade at the intruder. The blade spun end over end and slammed into the intruder's guts. Red lightning flashed in his eyes and gaping mouth, and the stench of sulfur filled the room.

Faith scrambled out of bed. Where one demon attacked, more couldn't be far behind. She grabbed her new boots and began tugging them on over her sweatpants.

When Dean continued to lounge, his eyes half-open as he watched her dress, she seized his boots from the carpet and hurled them at him.

"Let's go, Buttercup."

Nodding at the dead demon in the doorway, Dean got to his feet with a leisurely stretch. "Probably one of Abbadon's groupies."

"Ginger had groupies?"

"I'm their new favorite target."

"How exciting for you."

The demon chuckled. "Welcome to the Rumspringa, short stack. Next time, though, you can leave it for me."

By unspoken agreement, they took the Impala south with the windows down, thirty minutes along the highway, until they reached Miami. There, they found themselves a much more expensive hotel, courtesy of Crowley's credit card. After dropping off her duffel bag on one of the two queen-sized beds in their suite, Faith wandered down to the hotel boutique while Dean took another nap.

Twenty minutes later, the woman returned upstairs. She left a pair of standard-issue navy board shorts for Dean on the dresser and then disappeared into the bathroom with the rest of her purchases, emerging after another ten minutes in a teal bandeau bikini, a pair of oversized sunglasses, and a floppy sun hat.

The demon wolf-whistled. "Damn, girl. I didn't think you look any hotter than you did in those leather pants from last night. Looks like I was wrong."

"Get changed," Faith commanded, lifting the trunks from the dresser and throwing them at his face. Still, she smiled. "We're hitting the beach."

* * *

They stayed outside until past sundown. Faith spent the first half hour swimming in the water, but then she saw a boy dog-paddling along with a shark-fin snorkel attached to his head, and she remembered far too much of Jaws to continue enjoying her swim.

"You bored already?" taunted Dean from his hotel-provided beach towel. He stopped his survey of the bikini-clad women around them long enough to lower his sunglasses and squint up at her.

In lieu of a reply, Faith tossed her head, sending droplets of salt water flying into his face.

"Bitch."

"Asshat." She sank gracefully down onto her own beach towel and rolled onto her stomach. Reaching into their orange beach bag (another hotel boutique find), she tugged out a dog-eared paperback.

"What the . . . Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives?" Dean jerked the book away from her and read the title scornfully. "Where the hell did you get that?"

Faith shrugged. "It was in the hotel book exchange area."

"I didn't realize you could read."

"Very funny. I'm peeing myself with laughter as we speak." The Slayer idly turned the first page to the table of contents and began tracking down the chapter titles with her index finger.

After a few seconds, Dean gave in and indulged his curiosity. "So, why the sudden Guy Fieri fixation?"

Faith shrugged. "Food's as good a way as any to figure out where I'm going next. I mean, I think I'm Grand Canyon or Yellowstone-bound eventually, but in the meantime . . . There's lots of meals on the road between there and here." She flicked through the book until she found the section on Georgia.

"You not sticking around for -"

"We went over this already," the woman cut him off. "You can Rumspringa damn well on your own. And me? I don't need demon drama. No offense - but I trust Crowley about as well as that three-year-old over there could throw him." She nodded towards a dark-haired toddler fifteen yards away who had just knocked down her older brother's sand castle.

"Cute kid," observed Dean automatically.

"Bet she turns into a monster teenager. They all do, sooner or later." Faith flipped another page. "Now leave me alone - unless you see a ten, I want to keep reading."

The demon glanced at the beach-goers around them. There were plenty of eights, but he had yet to see either a man or a woman that he would classify as a ten. "How about a nine point five?"

"Nope." Faith shook her head obstinately. "Tens only."

* * *

When the sun at last went down behind the Miami skyline, Faith reluctantly shook the sand out of her beach towel and tucked towel and book back into her bag. They traipsed slowly back along the warm sand towards the hotel where Faith changed back into her clubbing outfit from the night before, and then they ventured out into the city night life.

Within half an hour, however, the Slayer and the demon drifted apart. Faith left Dean at the bar of some overpriced tourist joint, and she moved alone from a townie bar to a salsa club, dancing against half a dozen random strangers at each place before leaving them frustrated and empty-handed.

Around midnight, she returned to the hotel. The Slayer peeled off her leather pants and crawled into bed in just a tank top and her underwear. Her earlier nap had been less than relaxing, and the long afternoon and evening in the sun had zapped her of energy.

She woke roughly two hours later to find a heavy body pressing into hers and the overly-loud breathing of a certain demon in her ear. Ramming her knee upward, she slammed it into his crotch and shoved the black-eyed demon off of her.

"You reek," were the first words out of her mouth. She reached beneath her pillow for her Bowie knife, and the serrated edge gleamed in the faint light from the street outside. "How many girls did you -"

"Two."

Faith raised her eyebrows. "Not bad," she mused aloud, swinging her legs over the side of the bed. "Not your personal best, but not bad. Simultaneous or sequential?" she asked as a follow-up.

"Simultaneous."

"Where'd they fall on the scale?"

"Looks-wise, both about seven and a halfs. But they were wild in be-"

The Slayer stopped him with an outstretched hand. "TMI." She wrinkled her nose. "No offense, dude, but you definitely need a shower." Rising, she wandered across the room to her duffel in search of sweatpants.

Dean watched her for a long moment, before saying in a gravelly voice, "So, you really still think you're leaving in the morning?"

"I _am_ leaving in the morning." Faith glanced up from rifling through her clothes, her expression twisting into a frown.

"No, you're not." The post-sex good naturedness had disappeared from his tone.

Yanking her sweatpants up and over her hips, the woman tied the drawstring with quick, angry fingers. "What the frak?" she said in a play for time. Faith regretted leaving the Bowie knife on her bed. "You don't call the shots for me, Buster Brown. I call my own damn shots, remember?"

"You sure about that?" The demon moved into her personal space, and Faith instinctively dodged right in an attempt to side step him.

"And why is that?" Although her palms itched for a weapon - any kind of weapon would do - the Slayer kept her voice light.

He took another step forward, looming over her. "Because you're on my side." It was not a question. "You can act all high and mighty, but bottom line, we both know how this ends: you choose me."

Faith laughed, but nothing was funny. "G-d. You're full of yourself, aren't you? Listen up, Black Eyes. I'm on nobody's side but my own. " She pushed his chest, shoving him backwards. "Get the frak off me."

"Ah ah ah." The demon shook his head and smiled. "Good versus evil, Crowley versus Sam, the Slayers versus, well, everything . . . doesn't much matter, does it? You'll choose me. You'll always choose me." He tapped, hard, on the cross dangling on a long chain in the hollow between her breasts.

Damn it. She had almost forgotten putting the necklace on when she went to bed. It had seemed so automatic and natural to make sure that no one could take it and use it against her. Now, Faith wondered why she had not realized that Dean would find a way to use it against her regardless.

The demon leaned in even closer, pinning her against the wall with his hips, his hands braced against the plaster on either side of her head, his forehead pressed against her tousled brown hair, his lips nearly brushing her ear. "You already did, remember?" he whispered.

His breath, like the rest of him, was far too warm, and he stank of cheap alcohol and unwashed bodies. Oblivious to her revulsion, Dean continued, "All the things in the world that you could come back to, and you came back to me. But it's okay, Faith," he murmured, and his nose skimmed the goose pimples blossoming on her neck, too close to her Angelus scars for comfort.

The Slayer slapped him with a ringing smack that echoed off the hotel room walls. "Get your hands off me," she hissed furiously. "You're drunk."

"Shoulda saved that demon for me this afternoon, Faith," he said, his voice suddenly much clearer. The illusion of drunkenness vanished in an instant, and his eyes flashed back to black. "Feel this?" The demon pressed his right arm tight against the Slayer's side, until she could feel the burning that emanated from the crook of his elbow through the thin cotton of her tank top.

"Bit warm," commented Faith even as her pulse accelerated.

Dean snorted in appreciation of the understatement. "Exactly. Mark needs a little something-something."

"You just had a little somethi - . . . wait." Her frown deepening, the Slayer realized what he was implying. "You're saying the Mark wants blood?" She could not see the First Blade, but that didn't mean that it wasn't tucked away into the waistband of his jeans.

"Always, sweetheart." He smiled, a cold predatory thing that promised nothing but pain. "Didn't think it'd be tonight, but hey, maybe that explains why Crowley didn't raise a fuss about me taking off with you alone."

Oh, Hell no. Faith had absolutely zero intention of getting carved up into a zillion tiny ragged pieces just because of some damn Biblical curse thing. The Mark had been fine as an abstract, 'can't-touch-me' concept while she was a ghost, but now that the demon's anger issues were threatening her . . . to the Slayer's mild surprise, she found that she actually wanted to live. Just a little bit, but still. Even that little bit was more than she had expected.

These thoughts flashed through her mind in the space of a heartbeat, and then the woman struck. She brought her arm as far back as the wall would permit and slugged the demon, her fist smashing into his nose. Bone and cartilage went crunch. Blood spattered across his face and her forearm. Faith grinned. Not too bad for one punch.

"The frak was that for?!" Instinctively retreating backwards, Dean released her to cradle his broken nose with both hands.

"You were starting to tell me how much your new tattoo gets off on pain," shrugged Faith. "How's that for blood, Dean? You feeling tingly yet?"

"Not my blood, you bithh," he said with a sudden lisp.

Taking advantage of his momentary distraction, the Slayer darted around him and escaped to the middle of the motel room carpet. "Oh, come on, pretty boy," she taunted as she went. "Ditch the name-calling. Don't you want to show me how much of a Big Bad you are now? Why not let the darkness come out to play?"

Dean wiped blood onto his bare forearm. "You know it won't bother me if I kill you," he informed her conversationally.

"G-d, quit being such a tease." Faith took another step closer to her bed and the Bowie knife lying beside her pillow.

"You always were borderline suicidal," observed the demon, tracking her movements with his dark gaze.

"So were you," she pointed out. "Pretty sure it was why we got along."

Finally moving, he crossed the room in three quick steps and cut off her access to her knife. "Final warning," he threatened. "I won't hold back."

Fear and excitement warred within Faith. This . . . Cheeseburgers, rubber band balls, and hot dance partners aside, this was the closest that she had come to feeling alive since Sam had hauled her reluctant ghostly ass back to the land of the living. Her throat went dry at the realization, but she regained her composure and smiled wider up at Dean. "Promises, promises, Demon Boy," she almost trilled the words. "You woke me up, and now you're boring me to death. Come on and make me _feel_."

* * *

Ten minutes, two shattered chairs, and a noise complaint from the hotel proprietor later, Faith collapsed onto her queen-sized bed, Bowie knife in hand, her left arm wrapped protectively around her chest. A black and purple bruise was already beginning to form beneath her right eye. "Ouch," she grunted, exhaling slowly through gritted teeth. "Ouch, ouch, ouch."

Limping to the only surviving wooden chair, the demon lowered himself onto its cushioned seat. "Ughh." He pressed a warm washcloth to the nasty mess of congealing blood covering his face. "You broke my nothze."

"So? You cracked my ribs," the Slayer shot back in retaliation. "Jerk." She blinked against the agony in her left side. "Anyway, don't Knights of Hell have mystical powers? Can't you just heal yourself?"

Dean began to start carefully loosening the dried blood without causing further damage to the bridge of his nose. "I'm still working on that part," he mumbled.

"Uh huh." Fingertips creeping along her skin, Faith counted up from her lowest ribs to see which ones had been injured. "You feeling less homicidal now?"

"A little."

"Good."

"For the record, though, I'd like to point out that you hit me first," said the demon in amusement.

"Baby." The Slayer snorted and instantly regretted it as her ribcage shrieked in protest. "All I did was bust your nose."

Scraping blood off of his skin with his fingernails, he returned her snort with one of his own. "You enjoyed that bit, didn't you?"

Faith screwed her eyes shut tighter at the pain in her ribs. "Told you, sunshine. You're not the only one with a thing for violence. Ouch. Tomorrow, you're helping me to tape these."

"Or we get Crowley to heal 'em."

"I like that idea." Pausing, the woman reflected on something that he had said earlier, before trading barbed comments had turned into throwing punches. "You really that certain, huh? That I'd be loyal to you over Crowley and Sam and Buffy and everyone else?"

He tilted his head back against the wooden chair. Muffled by the washcloth, his next words came out soft and nasally, but they were all the more menacing for their quietness. "Thing is," he explained, "you and me both know that this thing with Crowley is only temporary. Sooner or later, he and I are gonna part ways, and trust me, sweetheart, that ain't gonna be pretty. If I didn't think you'd be a useful card to have in my hand when that time comes, well, I wouldn't have just broken your ribs. I wouldn't have stopped until I'd broken your skull and let your jelly brains leak all over this damn hotel carpet." The demon spoke without artifice or melodrama. It was nothing more than the bare truth, and they both knew it.

Swallowing, she said, "That's quite the picture."

Pushing himself up from his seat, he turned away from her and meandered towards the bathroom. "I told you that I remember everything," Dean reminded her as he pulled his t-shirt over his bloodied face and let it fall to the carpet. His belt and jeans soon followed. "You, me, all of it."

"Your point being?" wondered the Slayer, unsure of where this was going.

His back to her, Dean paused in the doorway. "You're not gonna screw me over, are you, Faith?" The question was dangerously pleasant.

Faith yawned, partially as a show of unconcerned bravery, partially because she was exhausted. "I'm dead. Screwing you over takes too much effort."

That won her a dry chuckle. The bathroom door closed with a gentle thud. Once again alone in the darkness, the Slayer pulled the comforter back over her head, wincing as the movement pulled on her fractured ribcage. Within minutes, she was lost in dark dreaming.

* * *

**June 22nd, 2016, Miami, Florida, 9:27 a.m.**

"Ouch," Faith whimpered as she inhaled and agony spread once again throughout her body. "Oh, G-d," she gasped. "I can't feel my legs. Can't you . . . please can't you make it - I don't know - faster?" she begged. "I mean, hey, this is killing me. Can't you do an old friend a favor and help move things along a little faster? Come on, Dean. It -" She inhaled again, sharper this time. "Oh, G-d, it hurts."

Somewhere in the air above her, Dean sighed. "The things I do for you."

He stepped closer to the edge of Faith's queen-sized bed, and then it happened. The ice cold sting that ripped all the oxygen out of her chest.

"Arghhh!" she bellowed, her hands tensing into fists.

"For a Slayer, you're being one hell of a baby," grumbled the demon as he commenced to rub in the piles of goopy ale vera along her backside from her mid-calf to the edge of her underpants and then from the small of her back up to her spine and shoulders. "Not my fault you sunburned your ass."

A knock sounded on the hotel room door behind them.

"Busy!" Faith called over her shoulder. The stabbing pain of her sunburn was slowly subsiding to a dull ache.

Despite her shout, the door swung open anyway, and Crowley entered, wearing his customary three-piece black suit. The demon raised an eyebrow at the scene that awaited him: the half-naked Slayer stretched out on her stomach across one bed while the newest Knight of Hell knelt over her, a bottle of green gel in his hand.

Clearing his throat loudly, Crowley wondered, "And what have you been doing in my absence, children?"

Dean shrugged. "You said you wanted to howl at the moon. Little Miss Lobster over here decided that since we were in Florida she wanted to howl at the sun. Guess she forgot that even zombies can burn.'

"Not a zombie," groused Faith, and she swung her elbow backwards to catch him in the ribs. "I have a heartbeat."

Under the pretense of working more aloe into the reddened skin along the Slayer's neck, Dean leaned forward to murmur, "Yeah, but you're still dead on the inside, aren't you, killer?"

Crowley cleared his throat a second time. "If you could save the foreplay for later, Dean? There's work to be done. That is . . . if the Slayer is in?"

"She's in," said the demon confidently.

Faith grimaced into the floral comforter. After the confrontation last night and with those black-eyes boring into her, how could she be anything else but in? Even if she took off again, Dean seemed more than capable of tracking her down unless she went completely underground, which she had no interest in doing. Still . . . she could find a way to make this work to her advantage.

When it became apparent that the demons were waiting for her answer, she rolled off the bed and slowly began dragging her jeans over her sunburns. "That's right. I'm in."


	11. The Me in Team

* * *

**June 22nd, 2016**

For the majority of the drive from Miami to Charlotte, the Slayer slept in the back seat of the Impala, her knees pulled up against her chest. Sitting sentinel in shotgun, Crowley watched the rise and fall of her chest in the rearview mirror as the woman breathed. He still had not decided what to do with her. Alliances were changing all around him, shifting by the minute ever since earlier that morning when he had healed her busted ribs and Dean's busted nose. Frowning, he wondered how long Dean's fascination with the dead girl would last.

"I didn't realize you were going to keep her as a pet," he commented mildly to the demon in the driver's seat.

Dean shrugged but did not take his eyes from the road. "She looks good in a bathing suit."

Well. That was useful information. Hardly ground-breaking, but possibly useful. "I take it you two - "

"No." The black-eyed demon shut him down.

"Shocking," observed the King of Hell. "And here I thought that the minute you took her out of my sight that you would be conducting a very thorough body cavity search."

"Been there, done that. No need for a repeat."

"Aha," said Crowley, although he was not horribly surprised. Irritated, yes, but not surprised. Frankly, he would have found it far more shocking if Dean had actually cut the Slayer's throat and dumped her in a swamp the way he was supposed to.

Still, it was not an entirely displeasing situation. The Slayer had survived twenty-four hours alone with the newest Knight of Hell, ganked the demon that Crowley had sent to dispose of her, and no Sam Winchester or feathered Castiel had come to the rescue, guns a'blazing. If she continued as she had begun, she might be worth making a play for. Her soul was off-limits for the moment, but given time . . . And then of course, there was always the consideration that Faith Lehane had such a delightful history of charcoal-tinted morality.

He pulled out his phone and sent a few texts to set the world back into its proper orbit. There was no time like the present to plot for the future - especially when that future came with a three week expiration date.

* * *

**June 22nd, 2016, Charlotte, North Carolina, 3:25 a.m.**

"I think you and I should have a little chat."

"Now?" spluttered Faith around a mouthful of toothpaste as the King of Hell appeared behind her in the motel bathroom mirror. White flecks sprayed out of her mouth and all over the splotched porcelain sink.

"Yes."

"Okay." After spitting into the sink, the Slayer wiped the toothpaste off her chin with a hand towel. She spun around and crossed her arms over her chest in a purposefully defensive posture. Better to face the demon head on than his mirror image. Flossing could wait. "Shoot."

"Little bird gave me a tip about a town thirty miles or so from here with an overactive blood-sucking problem," said Crowley conversationally.

Faith raised her eyebrows. "Why did you come to me? That's not my gig anymore. I'm permanently retired." But something deep inside her twinged unpleasantly as she said it - whether it was nostalgia or guilt, the Slayer couldn't tell the difference.

"Well," drawled Crowley, in tones of 'we shall see.' "As you may or may not have noticed, our mutual friend has a temper. And rather like a recalcitrant dog, that temper requires periodic release. Your little hotel room brawl was merely a taste of what he is capable of. For the good of everyone - you, me, darling Dean himself - someone needs to take that puppy for a run."

The Slayer frowned at him in quiet skepticism. She spit another gob of toothpaste into the sink and said nothing.

"Here." He passed a piece of paper across the bathroom counter to her. An address was scribbled in red ink in the right-hand corner. "Think on it."

* * *

**June 22nd, 2016, Stanley, North Carolina, 7:30 p.m.**

"Where are we going?"

"I already told you." Faith glanced away from the wheel just long enough to roll her eyes in the demon's direction.

Dean grit his teeth. Right. Some podunk place in the middle of nowhere with a stupid redneck name that he had already forgotten. The Slayer had not said much when she had pick-pocketed his car keys and strong-armed him into riding shotgun, other than a quick flash of a grin and a single word: vampires.

"I mean," he started again in an attempt to regain control. "Why - why are we going?"

"Because I need to make sure this new body works as well as the old one did," she explained patiently. "And throwing a couple of punches at a couple of dumbass Winchesters does not count as a proper test drive."

"If it's a test drive you're looking for . . . " he hinted suggestively.

Too busy squinting at the upcoming road signs, she didn't bother with a truly barbed rebuttal. "Ask me again after we finish this. Does that look like it says 'Green Acres' to you?"

"Like the old TV show?" Dean gave the wooden placard a hard stare. It was now barely fifty feet away. "Yeah, that's it."

"Great." With a smooth twist of the steering wheel, the Slayer turned into the pot-hole filled drive leading to the trailer park. She slowed down when she came to a concrete speed bump and then swung a left into the park proper.

This was not Faith's favorite kind of haunt for vampire hunting - she preferred old-fashioned Southern cemeteries, closely followed by abandoned factories where she didn't need to worry about people screaming. She did _not_ enjoy hunting down a fang gang in a dilapidated trailer park surrounded by biker gang rejects and poor families with too many mouths to feed . It was an odd place for vamps to set up shop - the only thing going for it was that at least in places like these, nobody asked too many impertinent questions.

"Can you do this quietly?" she asked the demon beside her as she turned the keys in the Impala ignition and began walking casually towards their target - a ramshackle double-wide three slips down.

Closing his door, Dean chuckled. "Where's the fun in that?" He draped an arm around around her shoulders, a mockery of their earliest vampire-baiting evenings out.

"Not in the mood to get dragged off to the clink by the boys in blue," Faith warned him as the hilt of the First Blade on his hip bumped into her still-healing ribs. "I'm not asking for subtle. Just a little less . .. loud."

"I thought you liked loud." Somehow, he managed to pull off lascivious with one quirked eyebrow and the undercurrent of suggestion in his voice.

"Not in a neighborhood with kids." Growing up, Faith's tenement neighborhood in Boston had been the urban equivalent of this place. She had no desire to bring any more violence into the lives of children like her.

"Softie."

"Oh, you know me, honey bear," she bantered back, not without a caustic edge. "Soft-hearted to the core."

To Faith's surprise, this whole ruse was oddly comfortable. Despite the tension that she could feel thrumming through Dean's arm and shoulder into her skin, it was almost like old times.

At the outskirts of the gravel drive leading to the vampires' trailer, they separated. With a look and a nod, they divvied up assignments. Dean slipped around to the back while Faith tugged the neckline of her tank top lower and approached the front door. She knocked twice and waited for the door to open.

When a thin man with piercing dark eyes answered the door, the Slayer asked innocently, "Hey neighbor, I just moved in a few trailers off the other way. Any chance I can borrow a cup of sugar?"

As she looked the vampire at the door up and down, her skin crawled with gooseflesh. Faith always knew. She couldn't have said how - ancient occult blah blah blah - but she could always pick a vampire out of the crowd. Plus, the faint hint of blood and decay smothered in bleach fumes wafting through the open door made it a lot easier.

"Mind if I come in?" said Faith jauntily, after the vampire failed to answer her first question. Without waiting for a reply, she yanked the stake out of the waistband of her leather pants and plunged it into his heart.

The vampire exploded in a cloud of dust, and she stepped neatly inside the trailer before the screen door could swing closed on his ashes. She was standing in a cramped, narrow hallway piled with muddy boots and sandy flip-flops. From somewhere further in, she could hear the vague noises of two people getting friendly. The Slayer padded down the peeling linoleum to the trashed-out living room and the locked back door. Faith opened the door, creaking on its hinges, and the demon stepped through.

After taking one glance at the gray ash liberally coating her shoulders and chest, he grinned. "Couldn't wait to start without me?" Dean swung the side of his jacket back and pulled out his best new donkey jawbone friend.

Faith spared him the briefest of smiles, and then she tilted her head back. "Honey," she called out, "I'm home."

Footsteps pounded along the hallway as four vampires came rushing out of the bedrooms at a dead sprint. They skidded to a halt when they saw Faith and Dean.

" _Slayer_ ," hissed the oldest and the most cosmopolitan-looking of the lot. His mouth was crowded with yellow fangs. "There's only one of you with dark hair who carries a stake and travels with a lumberjack. Word on the street was that you died, Lehane."

Faith bared her teeth in a wolfish snarl. "I came back."

"You have got to quit with the small talk," complained Dean, rolling his eyes, and he launched himself at the closest vampire.

Originally, the Slayer had planned to do nothing after staking the first vampire and letting the demon into the building. She just wanted to lean up against the plasterboard wall and watch him go to town on their sorry asses. But when the oldest of the vamps rushed her, Faith forgot all intentions of dodging.

She allowed him to tackle her, to take her down onto the scratchy carpet, just so that she could have the sheer, furious pleasure of locking her legs around him and flipping them a hundred and eighty degrees, then pummeling his face over and over and over again until her knuckles were bloody and his jaw was busted. Only after that did she finally slam her stake into his heart.

When she pushed herself off the ashy carpet and looked up, Dean was lounging on the living room couch, three piles of dust lying scattered at his feet. He smirked at her. "Nice moves there, She-Hulk."

"Shut up." Faith crossed the carpet and jerked him up to a stand by his jacket collar. She kissed him once, harsh and aggressive, and when she pulled away, the edge of his lip was bleeding. Shaking her head like a dog after a bath, she stepped backwards.

"G-d," she said, more to herself than to the demon or the piles of dust. "I have _got_ to get laid. Not -" She held up a hand to silence him. "Not by you, champ. All I need you to do is to get your ass back into the Chevy, and we'll go find me a bar and a random." The slayer stumbled towards the door, muttering to herself as she went, "I really need to get this out of my system."

* * *

**June 22nd, 2016, Charlotte, North Carolina, 10:42 p.m.**

"Oh crap. Oh, crap. Oh, crap." Stumbling through the cramped motel room - too many damn go bags on the floor - the Slayer rushed into the bathroom where Dean was currently washing his hands. She had been halfway through shaking the ash out of her bra, considering which of her new outfits would get her the best bang the fastest, when the nausea slammed into her like a freight train.

"What?" snapped the demon peevishly.

"Move!" Shoving him out of the way, Faith threw back the toilet lid just in time to projectile vomit into the basin.

Dean watched the swirl of orangeish yellow liquid as it disappeared down the drain with the toilet flush. He half-imagined that he could visualize individual chunks. Skipping the preliminaries, he asked, "What did you eat?"

"The Chinese leftovers out of the mini-fridge, right before we left for Green Acres. I thought that since they were less than twenty-four hours old, and they'd only sat in the car for a few hours before they made it into the fridge . . . and I was starving. . . I thought it would be okay." She slid from a crouch into a kneeling position on the tiled floor, bracing her elbows on the cool porcelain of the toilet.

The demon chuckled. "Have fun with your food poisoning. I'm gonna go get laid." Out of curiosity, he laid the back of his hand against her forehead. "You've got a temp, Rambo. Try not to pass out and drown in the toilet?"

"Ungh," mumbled the Slayer, rising onto her knees as another wave of bile surged in her throat.

Still laughing, he went out.

* * *

Dean had had zero intention of returning to the motel before morning, but shortly after making plans with a petite brunette, he realized that the Slayer still had his damn car keys from their fanged field trip earlier in the evening. He was left with no recourse but to troup gamely back across the parking lot to retrieve them.

When he entered the motel room, he took one look at the empty beds and followed the silence back into the bathroom. The Slayer was still lying where he had left her two hours before, and by the looks of things, she hadn't heeded his advice about passing out. Her chin was resting on the edge of the toilet seat, her arms slack at her sides. He could hear her breathing, slowly but steadily.

The demon exhaled. He had no desire to deal with this right now, not when Ashley or Ashleigh or Ashlee was waiting for him back at the bar. "Slayer," he said gruffly, "wake up."

His hand closed over her shoulder, and he pulled her back from the can. Faith's eyes fluttered open and then shut, and her head slumped forward, her chin drooping down to her chest. Her face was splattered in partially dried vomit, reaching all the way up into her hairline.

"G-ddamn you," Dean grumbled. "I ain't got the time for this."

Leaning the woman back against his legs, he reached over to the sink and rinsed out a wash rag. He scrubbed the junk off of her face with brutal efficiency and then peeled her tank top up and over her head to get at the puke that had leaked below the neckline. As he ran the washcloth over her collarbones and the tops of her breasts, the Slayer opened her eyes for real this time.

"Why are you here?" she mumbled.

"You and food poisoning," grunted Dean, hoisting her to her feet. "Not quite the kind of horror movie remake I was wanting to watch tonight."

"Why?" repeated Faith weakly.

Feigning sincerity, the demon professed, "You know us knights. Always have a thing for damsels in distress." He snorted at her disbelieving expression. "I needed my damn keys."

"Oh." That was an answer that she could accept.

"Can you stand?"

She attempted to straighten out her legs and almost nose-dived into the toilet bowl.

"Never mind," grunted the demon, reaching under her knees and shoulders to lift her easily in his arms like a child. He carried her through the bathroom door to deposit her on the closest queen-sized bed.

First things first. Dean dug his keys out of the pockets of the Slayer's leather pants, and then he wrestled them off of her. Leaning over, he grabbed the first discarded t-shirt from the floor and manhandled her into it. She was too useful to leave lying around in her underwear and bra in a motel room where Crowley might walk in at any moment.

Her clothes taken care of, he yanked the covers up to the Slayer's chin and propped her upright on the entire room's set of pillows. The demon piled the extra comforter on top of her and then set the empty ice bucket on the mattress. Finally, he said, "A little bad rice isn't gonna kill you. Don't sh-t the bed, all right?"

And without another word, he left.

* * *

The sound of the motel room door creaking open startled Faith out of her food-poisoning induced haze. She blinked, and a familiar side-burned face swam into view from halfway across the room.

"How was the field trip?" inquired Crowley.

Faith knew that he had an agenda. The King of Hell always had an agenda. But right now, she was too hazy with nausea and her extensive sunburns to figure out what that agenda was. "Fine."

"All vampires went poof?" He seemed genuinely concerned.

"Yup."

"You're rather monosyllabic this evening," he observed.

"Sick."

The King of Hell wrinkled his nose. "I suppose that explains why the bathroom reeks of bile."

"Ungh." Shivering, the Slayer reached out for her bucket. She dry-heaved into the empty plastic liner and set the bucket back on the nightstand. She was vaguely aware of the television turning on, and then she fell back asleep.

* * *

**June 23rd, 2016, Charlotte, North Carolina, 8:27 a.m.**

Many hours later, Dean swiped his key card outside the motel room and shouldered the door open. He entered to find his new "bestie" and his former "bestie" sharing a bed and watching what looked like some period drama nonsense on the television.

"You two look cozy," he commented.

"View of the screen was better over here," Crowley justified himself. "And demons can't get sick."

Toeing off his shoes by the door, the demon cocked his head to the side in consternation at the TV. "What the hell is this? BBC America?"

"Peaky Blinders," answered Crowley. The Slayer merely continued to stare at the black rectangle mounted by the wall with glassy, slowly blinking eyes.

Dean frowned at the man on the screen in his pageboy cap and weird haircut. "That's the dude from Batman," he observed out loud. ". . . the Scarecrow. Crazy-looking mother-frakker."

"He's hot," countered both Faith and Crowley in unison.

"Uh huh. Not gonna lie, you two agreeing kinda freaks me out." The show didn't look too terrible, however. "Scoot over."

At the malevolent glare the Slayer sent him, he added, "Don't worry. I rinsed off at hers." He flopped onto the mattress on Faith's other side and checked her forehead again. "Fever's better. You should be back to murdering fangs by tomorrow."

"Ungh." The bed dipped with his weight, and Faith slid towards the side, her head falling onto his shoulder.

"You passing out on me, Slayer?" Dean asked.

"Warm," came the terse response.

Odd. He had left her wrapped up in the second comforter. "Where's your extra blanket?"

She managed to mount a full sentence in response, complete with subject and verb. "Crowley stole it."

The demon in question shrugged. "I am the King of Hell," he reminded them. "Not a nursemaid. You might want to keep your expectations realistic."

"Mmm." He allowed the Slayer to lean against him for a moment and then he pushed her over onto Crowley. Unimpressed, Crowley pushed her right back.

This time, Dean allowed Faith to remain slumped against his side, half-asleep with her shoulder digging into the side of his arm. He could feel the other demon's amused stare on the back of his neck. Damn him. Dean was beginning to grow more than a little fed-up with the whole thing - Crowley sending demons after him; him pretending not to notice; and now, the cherry on top - the Slayer.

Initially, he had only seen her in terms of opportunity, usefulness, and amusement. Now, with her over-hot skin pressing on his, he marveled at how easy it was to fall back into old patterns.

He needed her - it would make the eventual split with Crowley go much smoother - but that did not mean that he needed to be nice to her. For whatever reason, habit was harder to break with the Slayer than it had been with his brother. Maybe because he had far fewer negative memories associated with Faith Lehane than he did with his brother. And as loathe as he was to admit it, it was far too easy to feel something beyond indifference for her.

Faith Lehane had never betrayed or abandoned him. Faith Lehane did not crown herself with a halo of sanctimoniousness. Faith Lehane did not need him to pick up the shattered pieces that she left in her wake. Faith Lehane did not need him for anything.

They got on. They had always gotten on. And objectively, Dean could admit that she was funny, clever, and good in a fight. Also much hotter than half the women he slept with these days.

Ironic, he thought, how she was the one thing from his old life that he didn't mind keeping around. He was the same person he had always been, just a little less tethered down. He was beginning to get the impression that perhaps she was, too.

The Slayer mumbled something unintelligible, and Dean was reminded briefly the look of complete satisfaction on her face when she had staked that vamp. He glanced back from the TV to the Slayer. In sleep, she was unusually still. He would keep this thing going, just until the nonsense with Crowley petered out and he no longer needed her. And then?

Well, Dean would cross that particular bridge when he came to it.

"Let's stay put today," he suggested when the next commercial break came around, and he felt the need for a distraction. "I saw these triplets at the bar yesterday . . . they had plans with their parents but they said they would be free tonight."

"Triplets?" Crowley smiled. "Do go on . . . ."

* * *

Faith spent the rest of the day sleeping and watching television. Every now and then, she woke to find either Dean or Crowley flopped on the bed next to her and the channel changed. When they went out near the end of the evening to party with their adventurous triplets, Dean left her with a two-liter of ginger ale and a pack of saltines.

When she next woke, the bright light of morning was streaming through the motel mini-blinds, and the demons still had not returned from their wild night. The Slayer showered, dressed, and put on fresh eyeliner. Then Faith grabbed the motel room notepad and a pen, and she began to brainstorm.

At the top of the page, she wrote three names: _Abbadon, Crowley, Winchester._ Faith stared at the last name on the list, chewing the cap of her pen. She doodled aimless spirals across the page and tried for introspection. It was not something that came naturally to her, but she had had plenty of opportunity to practice in the Veil.

Somehow, she had gotten herself roped into whatever scheme the King of Hell was concocting at the moment. This had not been the plan. Strictly speaking, of course, Faith had never had an actual plan. There had been glimmers - she wanted to see hot springs and mountains and do someone on the watching deck of the Old Faithful Inn while the geyser went off - but nothing very structured. She gnawed on the end of her pen, stared at the angel blade sticking out of her open duffel bag, and thought.

Eventually, she came to a turning point. The easy way out would be the same way that she had come in - taking off in a stolen car. But there might be a more elegant way to solve this, one that didn't result in living on the run. Faith figured that she could compromise - at the very least for a week or so.

As much as the idea of hot men and hot springs entranced her, there was something to be said for the way she had felt taking out the vampires - pure, unbridled exhilaration that she had not felt in ages.

So. A Slayer could die and come back, but she would still be a Slayer. The knowledge, the urges, the _needs_ \- to dance with danger, to destroy or to be destroyed - did not go away. She was a nihilist living in an absurdist's body. And that, Faith thought, was a good thing to know.

But this time, she reminded herself, things were different. There were no rules or governing body of old white men. There was no judgement, no Buffy. This time, there was only Faith.

This time, Faith was free.

* * *

**June 24th, 2016, Charlotte, North Carolina, 2:15 p.m.**

Her stomach was still untrustworthy, and so while Dean downed a giant bowl of triple chili (meat, beans, spaghetti) over lunch in one of Guy Fieri's suggested diners and Crowley tore into a BLT that was more bacon than anything else, Faith stuck to a boring PB&J. After she finished her sandwich, she stepped into the bathroom to wash the sticky jam off of her hands. As she turned off the water, she glanced over her shoulder to see Crowley.

"You were right," Faith said calmly, choosing not to mention the demon's penchant for cornering her in restrooms. "He needed that hunt the other night."

"Pardon the schoolboy response, but I did tell you so."

She scrubbed at the vampire ash still stuck beneath her fingernails. "I almost wonder if I needed it more," admitted the Slayer with calculated honesty.

"I had wondered," Crowley said neutrally.

Glancing up from her hands, Faith decided to be direct. "Look, next time you hear of a town with a vampire problem, you just let me know."

"And why would I have information about vampire . . . issues?"

"Uh huh." The Slayer dried her hands on a paper towel and crumpled it up into a little ball. "I know what you're trying to do here, Crowley."

"Excuse me?"

"Using me as your demon boy fluffer. You want me to keep him happy, keep him just this side of homicidal. I don't care why," she added sharply before he could interject. "Hey, this is as decent a gig as I've ever had: free food, free booze, free lodging, a demon to beat the sh-t out of whenever I need to . . ."

Crowley's eyebrows crept up to his forehead. "You expect me to believe that Dean lets you do that? Beat the sh-t out of him."

The Slayer smiled. It was not a friendly smile. "Handsome, nobody lets me do anything."

"Why are you interested in staying?"

Faith shrugged. "Where would I go?"

To that, he had no answer.

After a beat of silence, the Slayer continued, her voice businesslike. "So anyway, my point was that

you don't need to get all secretive. Just give me an address and a sit-rep, and if I feel like it, I'll take a road trip and invite ol' Black Eyes along, okay?"

"I suppose we have an agreement, then."

"Yeah," said Faith. "I s'pose we do."

Although unspoken, the mutual words _for now_ did not go unheard.

* * *

**June 28th, 2016, Morristown, New Jersey, 9:54 p.m.**

There were places, mused Faith, where the cold hand of Time never left its chilly fingerprints. Places content to ignore the rest of the universes. Places that would survive Armageddon, Ragnarok, and the Second Coming. Places, thought Faith, like demon bars.

Partying in Charlotte turned into partying in Richmond turned into Gettysburg turned into Baltimore turned into Trenton, and now here she was, slinking through the wavy glass front door of yet another demon haunt. It had been a full three days of riotous living since her food poisoning fiesta. Faith had screwed strangers twice a day - in a different city every time. She had eaten her weight in cheesesteak sandwiches and crabcakes, and she had taken out a new nest of vampires every night. Wherever Crowley was getting his information from, it was clearly working.

Tonight, however, she needed a break from the constant stench of testosterone and sulfur, and even watching Hell's King and latest Knight flinch whenever she coughed the word "Christo" got boring after a while.

Faith used the lone motel visitor's computer to log into an ancient email account and track down an email that Spike had sent her forever ago of his friend Clem's top 10 demon bars in every state. With a few destinations in mind, she liberated the spare key from beneath the license plate of the Impala and took off.

It was a forty-minute drive to the first place on her list. Faith parked the Chevy a few blocks away from the bar and zipped her leather jacket up to her collar. She had a stake in her boot and the angel blade strapped to her hip, and a half-formed idea. Tonight, she would get to the bottom of the Abaddon problem - or at least have an enjoyable few hours trying.

The Slayer pulled open the heavy wooden door and strolled inside the bar. The interior was packed with things with horns, things with scales, things with horns and scales. Not to mention vampires. There were always, always vampires. She sidled up to the bar and clambered onto a rickety bar stool.

"Tequila." She gestured at the bartender, who appeared more or less human. "Extra lime."

"Sure thing."

When the shot arrived, Faith swallowed it down and tapped on the counter for another. "More."

"Easy, sugar," said the bartender, but he poured her glass up to the top. "You wanna think about taking it slow?"

"No." Faith downed her second shot and motioned for a third. "Less talk, more alcohol."

"This isn't the kinda place you want to get intoxicated, sweetheart." The man (if he was a man. With certain species of demon, it was difficult to tell) was clearly trying to be helpful. "The company ain't always friendly."

Faith tossed back her third drink. "I'm not worried."

"In that case, what are you, then?" It was generally considered the height of impropriety to ask your customers this sort of question, but demon bars had never yet been know for their propriety. The bartender continued, "Vampires, succubus - "

"Slayer." Faith cut him off.

"Oh!" He took a half-step back, already reaching for the panic button under the bar.

"Cool it," ordered the woman. "I'm not here to paint the walls with blood. Just looking for the pals of a dead demon called Abaddon - and enjoying all your lovely free booze, of course."

"Frreeee - " began the bartender. It wasn't clear what shocked him more: a Slayer or the concept of patrons drinking for free.

"Free," Faith reiterated.

"Of course." His Adam's apple bobbed up and down nervously. "Uh, what did you say your name was?"

"I didn't."

"Oh."

"Strike number one, my fine friend." She reached for the bottle of tequila, and the bartender made no move to stop her. Faith drank directly from the neck of the bottle. Wiping her mouth on her sleeve, she set the tequila back on the counter. "Alright, mister. Start talking."

* * *

The bartender's information proved to be accurate. Faith had been loitering outside the Rotten Apple pool hall for less than an hour when her quarry, a tall, bald man in a too-small- suit, exited and took off at a rapid lope across the cracked city pavement, his hands shoved deep into his pockets.

Abandoning her post leaning up against a brick wall, the Slayer inhaled deeply. Her nostrils flared as she caught a whiff of sulfur. She hurried after the demon. Game on.

She cornered him in an alleyway three streets over, knocking him off his feet with a powerful kick to the chest. The Slayer dragged the demon back up from the ground and shoved him against the closest building. Holding her pilfered angel blade to his throat, she began her interrogation with a terse, "You fight for Abaddon. Where are the rest of your friends?"

"Like I'd tell you," gasped the demon angrily. "Bitch," he spat into her face.

Henchdemons. It didn't matter what they looked like on the outside. On the inside, they were the same: all snark and no substance. Blind followers of whatever demagogue promised them destruction and power. Shaking her head, Faith pressed the tip of her sword to the hollowed notched where collarbones met sternum. "Y'all have _got_ to work harder on your insults." She reached for her hip flask and unscrewed the cap one-handed, then splashed the contents onto his face.

"Ahh!" screamed the demon as boils erupted where the droplets of holy water struck him.

With a feral grin, Faith tucked the flask into the back pocket of her jeans. "Now," she increased the pressure on the angel blade until a thin trickle of scarlet blood blossomed where celestial steel met skin, "I'm not big on the whole repeating myself schtick, so I'll only ask this one more time: where are your friends?"

The demon opened his mouth, perhaps to squeal on his compatriots - more likely to spit or curse her again - but he was cut off by the warning squeal of a police siren and the sudden glare of headlights. The Slayer risked a glance over her shoulder. A police cruiser was turning into the mouth of her alleyway, its window slowly rolling down with an ominous creak.

"G-ddammit," Faith exhaled. They had just been getting into the swing of interrogation.

"Ha," snorted the demon.

A black megaphone protruded through the cruiser's open window. "Ma'am, this is the Morris County Sheriff's department. Put your hands up - slowly - and step away from the victim."

"I do _not_ have time for this," said Faith. She tightened her grip on the angel blade hilt and shoved it forward and up, up, up through the demon's eyes. His eyes flashed with red flame as he died. The Slayer jerked her sword loose, and his body crumpled to the muddy gravel at her feet.

Hands held above her head, the bloodied angel blade dripping blood down onto her leather jacket, the woman revolved slowly on the spot to face the police car. "Here we go," she muttered under her breath.

Halfway through her revolution, something collided into her belly with a starburst of pain. Faith recognized the projectile as it bounced onto the ground. Seriously? Bean bags? She had just stabbed someone to death, and they were shooting her with bean bags? The Slayer dropped to her knees, still keeping her hands up high. Since they were going to arrest her, she might as well cooperate so that things got out of hand. Killing demons gave her an adrenaline kick. Killing humans, however, was rather more taboo.

Desirous to avoid bloodshed, she stayed silent and cooperated while the two police officers wrestled her to the wet earth, twisted her arms behind her back, and slapped a pair of handcuffs onto her, reading her rights in shouted voices. Faith allowed them to push her facedown onto the hood of the cruiser and go through her pockets. Their search resulted in the flask of holy water, a spare key to the Impala, fifty bucks cash, and a tube of red lipstick. At least she had left her wallet and its fake ID back in the Chevy.

The Slayer continued to keep her cool when the officers shoved her unceremoniously into the back seat of the car. She kept her eyes wide open, waiting for a decent chance to escape. Faith had no desire to murder civilians, but she also had no desire to return to prison. She would play it by ear and seek out the first opportunity to get the Hell out of Dodge.

It was unfortunate, she reflected, as the burlier of the two policemen dragged her out of the cruiser and marched her into the gleaming police station and its less-than-gleaming interrogation room. If Dean hadn't been such a douchebag that afternoon, she might have told him where she was heading. As it was, neither Dean nor Crowley knew anything of her whereabouts. Although it was likely safer for the policemen that way. Of the three of them, Faith was the most inclined to be merciful.

She waited in the empty room with its off-white walls for ten minutes before a rumpled detective with sandy brown hair came charging in. He eyed her handcuffed hands, still stained with the demon's blood, and pulled up a chair on the opposite side of the well-worn wooden table.

"Name?" he asked without preamble, not even bothering to introduce himself.

"Barbra Streisand." Faith couldn't help herself. A smile spread across her face.

"Name?" repeated the detective, this time through audibly gritted teeth.

Oh, pissing him off was going to be far too easy. The Slayer stretched her legs under the table and shifted in her uncomfortable metal chair. "Kate Middleton," she fired back.

"Name?" His eyebrows furrowed as he struggled to keep his cool.

"Liza Minelli."

Metal scraped against the concrete floor as the detective shoved his chair backwards and loomed over the interrogation table. "NAME?!" he demanded, completely losing his temper.

Faith's smile widened. "Would you accept Beyoncé?" she inquired innocently.

Someone knocked at the door, and the detective stepped over to answer it, his shoulders heaving with frustration. After briefing conferring with his colleague in the hallway, he closed the door with excessive force and spun on his heels to sneer down at her, his expression smug and triumphant, a thick, new folder in his hands.

"We found a match for your fingerprints in the computer. Welcome back to the justice system, Ms. Lehane."

"Aw, shucks." The Slayer lifted her wrists off the table as far as the chain would permit. "Guess now you know who I am."

 _Not that it'll help you keep me,_ she thought to herself.

"I don't think you understand the seriousness of this situation."

A classic cop line, delivered with less-than-average panache. Faith yawned.

"You realize we have you dead to rights on murder one?" continued the detective, who had yet to introduce himself. "Which will also cause your prior sentence from California to be reinstated in full?"

She would not be staying that long. The Slayer flipped him off. "Up yours, pig."

"You need to take this more seriously, Ms. Lehane. If you cooperate, things will go easier for you."

It was like he was reciting the lines from some bad Jack Reacher novel. Faith leaned forward in her seat. "And if I don't?" she asked lightly. "You gonna send me up the river to Sing Sing."

"Sing Sing is in New York." The words were strangled. "This is New Jersey."

Faith shrugged. "Sucks to be you."

"You can be as sarcastic as you want, Miss Lehane, but it doesn't change the facts. In three hours, soon as transport gets here, you are headed for the max security women's penitentiary - and you'll rot there until your trial."

A timeline, huh? She could work with that. If she remembered correctly, there was a safety pin clipped to the inside of her left bra cup. As soon as minor league Law-and-Order here stepped out of the room, she could fish it loose and start working on the cuffs. Provided there were no interruptions, she reckoned she could bend the bars at the high window, punch through the glass, and wiggle her way out in three minutes flat. Losing the angel blade and the car key kind of blew, but she knew her way around hotwiring an engine. It wouldn't stop her for too long.

The Slayer was halfway through calculating the tensile strength it would take to rip her cuffs out of their chained attachment to the table when the familiar ricochet of gunfire echoed throughout the small police station. The color drained from the detective's face. "Don't go anywhere," he said automatically, pulling his sidearm from its holster. "I'll be right back."

Once the door closed behind him, Faith scooted even further forward, until her hands could reach inside the wide collar of her t-shirt and unhook the safety pin from the fabric of her bra. She opened the pin and then gripped it in her teeth, contorting her body in order to stick the sharp end inside the handcuff keyhole. Thirty seconds after she started working, all gunfire ceased. A moment later, the interrogation door was kicked open.

Dean Winchester strolled in, his green eyes smirking out at her from the depths of a black ski mask. Faith would recognize those bowlegs and that silver-plated handgun anywhere. "Get up," commanded Dean, tugging the ski mask off his face. "We gotta run."

"All the girls in the world, and you came back for me," she said drily, rising to her feet. "I'm flattered. How'd you find me?"

"Crowley's got eyes on everyone," he answered in a curt voice. The demon fished a handcuff key out of his pocket and released her. He gave the Slayer a push towards the door. "Move it, sweetheart."

They ran through the police station, the cheap government-issued carpet now scattered with cops, detectives, and other employees, all clutching their shot-out knees or otherwise out cold. Faith paused just long enough to grab her things from the detective's desk - why throw away a perfectly serviceable angel- and demon-killing sword? - and then they were out in the dark city. She followed Dean over a chain-link fence, through a twenty-four-hour laundromat, and across two floors of a parking garage until they came to the Impala.

"You moved the car, too?" she wondered as he slid behind the wheel and the motor roared to life.

When he remained silent, she decided to hold onto her next question. Ultimately, half an hour and thirty-five miles passed before she spoke again. "Why did you show up back there, Dean? Nothing in it for you, rescuing me."

"You snore less than Crowley does. Plus, out of the two of you, you have the better boobs."

Faith stared at him for a brief moment, considering. Then she said, "Pull over."

"What?" He gawked at her in surprise. "Might have escaped your notice, Your Zombieness, but we're kinda on the run from the cops right now."

"Dean." Her hand snaked along the inseam of his jeans, working its way past his knee and upwards. "I mean, pull over so I can say thank you."

He instantly began scanning the road beside them for the next turn-off. "I thought you didn't do monsters," Dean hazarded.

"I don't," said Faith. "But in this case, I can make an exception."

* * *

"You're late." The demon on the other end of the line was unimpressed.

"Ran into trouble - the thin blue line kind." Dean glanced across the front seat of the Chevy to the Slayer, who was once again employing her uncanny ability to fall asleep anywhere at any time. After their pit-stop in the woods, she had lapsed into one of her funks, and he knew better than to try and talk her out of it before she was ready. Besides, he was still busy replaying the memory of that pit-stop in his mind. "Thoughts on Nebraska?" he asked Crowley.

"I suppose it might be better than West Virginia."

He didn't disagree. West Virginia did not make it into Dean Winchester's list of top twenty-five states. "Good. We'll meet you in Lincoln."

"Agreed," purred the King of Hell silkily. "Oh, and Dean?"

"Yeah?"

"Next time, don't be late."

* * *

**June 29th, 2016, Lebanon, Kansas, 6:30 p.m.**

When the caller ID said Lily Price, Sam should have known better than to answer the phone. He hadn't spoken to either of the Slayers in weeks, not since Dean had died. He couldn't bring himself to ask them for help – not when that help always came with so many Slayer strings. And then when the fit hit the shan with the five o'clock news this afternoon . . . accepting Lily's call had not been a good idea. Instead, it was one that he regretted.

"Sam," said Becka, her usually calm voice vibrating with rage, "why is there footage of Faith and Dean breaking out of a county jail in the middle of New Jersey? I thought you killed all the Leviathans."

"Uh . . . about that . . . " He mumbled the bare bones of how Faith had been first a ghost and then not a ghost, and was now gone. Along the way, he filled them in on the sensitive subject of Dean and the Mark of Cain.

"YOU MEAN SHE'S ALIVE?" yelled Lily into the phone. Sam winced. "She's been alive for a week, and you didn't tell us?! And now she's off with your Knight of Hell brother doing God knows what?"

"We're going to have to tell Buffy," Becka muttered, almost to herself. "That Faith's back and . . ."

"And if the newsreels are telling the true story, she's gone bad."

"Yeah."

"Buffy's gonna flip."

"Basically."

Lily cleared her throat, ending the side conversation. "Tell you what, Sam. We'll set our people onto this. We'll call you later. The Slayers will handle everything."

"But -"

Becka laughed without humor. "There may be some black-eyed bug riding around in your brother's skin these days, but don't worry. We'll take care of it. You just stay out of this."

"But – "

" _Out_. _Of_. _It_."


	12. Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken

**June 29th, 2016, Cleveland, Ohio, 7:45 p.m.**

Lily dropped her phone onto the glossy wood of the kitchen table and sighed. She stared at the frozen TV, where the paused screen showed Faith and Dean charging past the crumpled desk sergeant. A coal-black semi automatic was clutched tightly in the demon's hands, and the unmistakable gleam of a silver angel blade dangled loosely from the crook of Faith's elbow. At this distance, the expressions on their faces were blurred, but Lily fancied that she could fill in the blanks. Faith would be affecting a grim sort of triumph, and as for Dean, he was probably just plain amused.

Sipping from the coffee mug in front of her, the blonde turned to her best friend, who was still watching the television. "Well?"

"We're not actually going to call Buffy, are we?" Becka looked more than halfway sick to her stomach.

"What else can we do, Beck? You saw the tapes." She took another sip of coffee.

"Yeah, but do the tapes really mean what we think they mean?" asked the brunette. It wasn't clear if she was seeing actual flaws in the police report's logic or if she was just floundering about for an alternate explanation. "No one died. Faith and Dean might not be as, you know, evil as everyone's been saying."

Lily raised an eyebrow, unconvinced. In their dynamic duo, someone had to take the pessimistic view of things. Pessimism was not a look that either Slayer wore well, and so they tended to take turns. Now, with Becka refusing to accept the clear implications of the situations, it fell to Lily to express the downer viewpoint. "The Mark of Cain is not some butterfly temporary tattoo that you get out of a quarter dispenser at the grocery store," she reminded her fellow Slayer. "And whatever Sam did to bring Faith back - "

"If he really brought her back right," said Becka darkly, flipping into pessimism. Rising from the kitchen table, she yanked the kettle off of the stove and began refilling it at the sink. This situation called for more tea.

"Exactly."

"So that's it, then?" Metal clanged on metal as the engineer slammed the kettle back onto the front burner with enough force to set Lily's teeth on edge. "We find Faith and Dean and put them down? What if he's holding her against her will?" The anger leeched out of her voice to be replaced by concern. "What if he hurts her?"

"You actually think he'll hurt her?" wondered Lily. She had been trying desperately to avoid that particular train of thought.

The brunette pursed her lips. "Before the Mark, never. Now? I have no idea. Who knows how much of Dean Winchester is still rattling around inside there anyway?"

"We could apply the same question to Faith," the blonde pointed out.

"Yeah." Becka sighed. "We gonna go in and liberate her?"

"In theory." Lily was losing some of her steam. "I mean, yes. If she wants or needs liberating."

Raising her eyebrows, the other Slayer said, "If? You realize that when we call Buffy, she's going to want to ride to the rescue? Whether or not Faith needs or wants rescuing? At the very least, she won't rest until we bring her in."

"True."

"We're not putting Buffy above Faith," stated Becka flatly.

"Of course not. If Buffy wants her in, but Faith wants out – " The blonde frowned in thought.

"Then we help her stay out?"

"Yeah. I think that's what we're going to have to do."

"Great." Lifting the kettle from the stove, Becka poured herself a large cupful of steaming water and added a peppermint teabag. She stirred the water and the tea solemnly. "When did Slaying get so complicated?"

"It's been complicated from the beginning," said Lily in commiseration. "I just don't think we realized it."

They sat at the kitchen table in a moment of silent camaraderie, and then together they dialed ten familiar digits into Lily's cell phone. If there were a library dedicated solely to the recording and transcription of awkward phone calls, this would have been the primary exhibit. Buffy spluttered at first, but then her demeanor changed, and she took in the news with almost terrifying calm. By the time she hung up the call five minutes later, both of the younger Slayers were feeling even more on edge than they had been previously.

"So," said Becka at length, rising a second time from her chair and stretching her arms up toward the ceiling, "that could have gone worse."

"Maybe." Lily eyed her dark mobile phone and exhaled heavily. "You realize this means that we need to hit the road ASAP, right?"

"Yeah. I'll give work a call, tell them my grandma's sick and that I need to take that week of PTO I've been saving. And then I should probably let James know that I'll be out of town for a few days."

"G-d," mumbled the blonde. "I hope this only takes a week We're going to have a devil of a time tracking them."

"Mmm," Becka agreed. "Too bad we can't call in that vampire friend of Dean's. What was his name again?"

Lily supplied the name. "Benny. He's dead, remember?"

"I remember. He's dead, and Bobby Singer is dead, and Sam might as well be dead, what with how stupid he's acting."

"I thought he had more sense," muttered Lily into her coffee mug.

"Really, Lil?" the engineer snorted. "Winchesters don't have the sense God gave a goose, not when it comes to each other. I still . . . I can't believe he brought Faith back and didn't tell us."

"I can't believe he was fool enough to think he could just geas her into being his hench-person. Slayers don't Igor for anybody – and Sam sure as shooting ain't no Dr. Frankenstein."

"It's Fraahnkensteen," Becka corrected automatically. "Yeah, that was more than a little dumb. You know we may need to bring the cavalry in if we can't find Faith in time?"

Lily winced and got up from her chair. Cavalry, Faith, and the new and improved Dean Winchester would not be a good combination. "I know. So let's get moving. I can be packed and in the car in ten. You?"

Pushing her chair into the table, the engineer followed her best friend upstairs. "About that. We driving or flying?"

"Driving," answered the blonde over her shoulder. "New Jersey?"

"They'll be long gone by the time we make it there."

"Probably. But at least we'll be able to review the CCTV and talk to the police who arrested Faith firsthand."

Becka froze at the top of the second floor landing. "Huh. You know what was funny?"

Frowning, Lily turned around to look at her. "What, Beck?"

"No casualties at that police station. A hell of a lot of broken bones and concussions and superficial cuts, but not one casualty. I wonder if that means something."

"I dunno. Other than that Dean could've killed them and he chose not to."

"Not a very comforting thought, is it?" The brunette shuddered.

Lily shook her head. No, it was not a very comforting thought at all.

* * *

**June 30th, 2016, London, England, 2:30 a.m.**

The sun had long since set in London Town, but Spike had yet to go out. Angel was off on some scouting mission with Fred, which meant that for once Spike could enjoy the peace and quiet and smoke in the flat. As long as he sat by the open window and ran the central air later, no one would be the wiser. He was debating about whether or not to turn on the telly when his phone rang.

To his surprise, it was none other than the Slayer head honcho herself. Curious, the vampire raised his mobile to his ear and said, "Hello, luv."

"Spike." Buffy's tone was curt. Whatever this was, it was most obviously a business call.

"To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"I've got a job for you. And Angel."

A job for both of them? How unusual. Buffy tended to keep her former lovers as far apart as she could. Her discomfort at their sharing a flat in central London amused him to no end. "I'm all ears," said Spike, his interest growing by the minute.

"Faith's gone rogue."

The vampire took another drag from his cigarette, half-convinced that his ears were playing tricks on his mind. "Faith . . . Faith . . . You wouldn't happen to mean our dearly departed Faith?" he said at last.

"Yes," replied Buffy. The word sounded as though it pained her. "Turns out she isn't as dead as she used to be. And now she's palling around with a Knight of Hell – we need damage control," the Slayer concluded in desperation.

"An' you want me an' Peaches to control her?" Spike coughed on smoke. No one could control Faith. It had been one of the many things about her that had driven the blonde Slayer crazy, back in the day, as well as one of the many things that the he had admired.

"Yes," said Buffy fiercely but then she back-tracked. "No. I don't know. I need you to find her. Figure out what's going on. If she's actually a threat or if she's in over her head. Either way, we can't let her keep being play-pals with the King of Hell and his newest knight."

Spike scratched the outer shell of his ear and leaned back in his comfortable armchair. "Just out of curiosity, who might that knight be?" He was ninety percent sure that he already knew, but it never hurt to confirm.

Buffy mumbled a string of words that blurred into one another.

"I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch that. Who did you say?"

"Dean Winchester."

"Ahh," hummed the vampire wisely. His suspicion had been correct. "Never fear, I'll track down Captain Forehead. We'll handle it."

"Good. And Spike?"

He stubbed his cigarette out in the ashtray on the adjacent coffee table. "Yes?"

"You should hurry," Buffy urged him. "I think those protégées of Faith's are going to try and mediate something with her."

"Doesn't sound like a horrible idea." Becka and Lily had always had good heads on their shoulders. Even better, unlike Buffy and Faith themselves, the two Slayers of the younger generation were remarkably not prone to overreacting.

"It isn't safe. They'll get themselves hurt." The fear in the woman's voice was palpable.

Instinctively, he attempted to comfort her. "Buff. This is Faith we're talking about. She won't hurt Lily or Becka. She treated them like family."

"Yeah, well there used to be a time when she never would have hurt me, either," muttered Buffy. "And we all saw how that turned out."

"I thought that was water under the bridge?"

"Just because Faith reformed before her death doesn't mean that she doesn't have the same . . . capacity for violence that she had as a teenager," the Slayer insisted. "If she's allying with demons . . . Do you see why I'm concerned?"

"I hear you," the vampire soothed. "Don't worry, B. Me and Angel will find our resurrected friend. We'll get this taken care of in no time."

"I hope so," said Buffy fervently, and she hung up.

Spike stared at the phone in his hand and reached for the flask at his hip. Right. He'd get right onto the calling Peaches bit. He just needed a drink or two to fortify himself against spending the foreseeable future in close quarters with his grandsire first.

* * *

**July 5th, 2016, Aurora, Colorado, 9:30 a.m.**

They had one week. One glorious week before things turned sour. They hit almost everywhere on Faith's national park bucket list – Yellowstone, Yosemite, the Tetons, Vegas, whorehouses in the rural outreaches of Nevada, the California coast. Nothing on her mind, nothing to worry her or occupy her time except for greasy food, booze, sex, and the occasional fight outside a demon bar. As long as she kept her back turned to security cameras, she was golden. Faith's only frustration was that wherever Abaddon's hangers-on were coming from, she could not get a handle on it for the life of her. They were like worms, crawling out of the woodwork one minute, and burrowing deep into the muddy earth the next.

On this particular morning, she woke in a hotel room somewhere just outside of Denver. The pillow beneath her head rose and fell rhythmically, and the Slayer rolled over to stare along the length of a black t-shirt to Dean Winchester's scruffy chin and too-long hair. She was tempted to reach up and run her fingers through the fuzzy mop, but thought better of it when the demon's black eyes flickered open. He pushed himself up onto his elbows and blinked down at her.

"Morning. Did we . . .?" his voice trailed off suggestively.

"No." The Slayer ended that train of thought before the demon could get carried away. "You were too drunk."

"Ah." Dean laid back down and dragged an actual pillow over his face. "Where's Crowley?"

"He stepped out." Faith tapped the demon's ribs until he moved the pillow and glared at her.

"What?"

"You got a plan?" she asked casually, as if the answer didn't matter.

He squinted against the pain of his hangover. "Plan for what?"

"Your divorce with Crowley."

"Oh." Relaxing, Dean closed his eyes again. "Nope."

"Just gonna wait and see what he does?"

"Yep."

Faith gnawed on her bottom lip. "That's a sucky plan," she pointed out.

"Which is why it's a good thing that I have you, then, isn't it?"

"I hate you," grumbled the woman, but she didn't put much effort into it.

"No, you don't," he contradicted her. "Anyway, it'll be fine, Faith."

"And how do you know that?"

Dean moved his callused hand down from the pillow to rest on her forehead. "Because," he said, roughly giving her hair an odd combination between a stroke and a pat, "it's not just me that's got you. You've got me."

"Are you _petting_ me?" The Slayer's tone jerked up half an octave, and she batted his hand away.

"I'm hungover. I'm doing whatever it takes to get you to shut up."

"Winchester - "

Dean turned onto his side, dislodging Faith from her comfortable position half-slumped across his stomach. "Sleep now, talk later."

"Listen - "

"Shh." The demon reached down, wrapped an arm underneath her armpits, and dragged the Slayer up along the mattress until she was even with him on the bed. He nuzzled the tip of his nose against the nape of her neck and then exhaled. "You know what I don't get?" he thought aloud in hazy hangover-induced honesty.

Leaning her head back against his shoulder, the Slayer retorted, "Why you say you want to nap but won't stop talking?"

"No." He looped his arm over her side again, pulling her tighter into his body. "Why I didn't make you stay before – before the Mark."

"I don't belong to you," she snapped, but she made no move to extricate herself.

"No, you don't," Dean agreed. "But you'd've stayed if I'd asked."

"Maybe," Faith admitted. Something sharp pricked at the backs of her eyes as she fought away the thought of what used to be and what might have been. "I guess now we'll never know."

* * *

**July 5th, 2016, Denver, Colorado, 8:55 p.m.**

The conversation set the course for a day that went from bad to worse. Despite her best efforts, a large order of onion rings, and three beers, Faith could not pull herself out of the doldrums. With each passing moment of every passing day, she was coming to realize that resurrection had not solved anything. There were only three times when she felt alive: tracking a demon, banging a stranger, downing a shot. But even then it wasn't real. It was a mere stop gap that lasted for five minutes. Five, ten, fifteen, thirty – and then she was empty again.

When night came, she sat sullenly next to Crowley at a bar and didn't say a word as Dean monopolized the karaoke microphone, massacring his way through increasingly drunk versions of Meatloaf's greatest hits. Once he finally relinquished the stage to a quartet of bright-eyed coeds and staggered his way across the crowded space towards them, Faith signaled to the bartender for another whiskey. She tossed it back before Dean could reach them.

The demons exchanged an eyebrow-raised look over her head. They had never seen the Slayer approach intoxication this early in the evening before – especially not when there was a nest of vampires less than two blocks away that needed to be cleared out by midnight.

Crowley covered the rim of her glass with his hand. "Going a bit hard, don't you think?"

Faith pushed him away and gestured to the bartender again.

"Hey." Dean grabbed her wrist and pinned it to the counter. "Aren't you going to compliment me on my song?"

The Slayer spun on her heel and glared up at him. "You know," she began in a sweet voice that set Crowley's danger warnings buzzing, "that whole time you were up there, molesting the microphone and mangling the classics, I kept thinking: I loved him once."

Releasing her as if her touch burned him, Dean recoiled backwards. "You _loved_ me?"

His shock gave Faith the leeway she needed to reach over, grab Crowley's umbrella-laden pink drink, and down it in one swallow. "No, you idiot." She slammed the glass back on the counter. "I loved the frakking microphone stand. Yes, you." Faith glanced at the King of Hell. "Dunno why you're so set on making him your new consort, Crowls. He's dumber than a box of rocks, this one." She jerked her thumb towards Dean.

"Crowls?" echoed Crowley in stunned shock. He dug a thick finger into his left ear and twisted it around. That couldn't be right. He must have misheard.

Overcoming his surprise, Dean moved back into the Slayer's personal space. His palms grazed her waist. "For what it's worth," he said in a silky voice, "I used to love loving you, too – if you know what I mean."

Faith's glare only intensified. "You need better pick up lines, Fabio. Or I need more alcohol." She extended her empty glass towards the bartender before either of the demons could stop her. "A lot more alcohol."

Crowley and Dean exchanged another look, and the King of Hell inclined his head towards the Slayer. _This one's on you,_ the gesture said.

"Slayer," started Dean.

Faith interrupted him. "Go knock boots with that waitress." She pointed indiscreetly to a blonde with wavy hair who was taking a tray of drinks and wings to the table closest to the karaoke stage. "She's been eyeing you up all night."

The demon laughed. "After you just said you loved me? Only a heartless sonnuvabitch could do that."

"Used to," Faith reminded him sourly. "Past tense. Very, very past tense. And in case you hadn't checked the mirror lately, you are a heartless sonnuvabitch."

"And you're dead," Dean countered, although it was a weak comeback. "That why you're so . . . emotional . . . today?" he prompted with sudden insight.

Faith shook her head, furious. "I came back wrong," she murmured as the bartender poured her a bourbon. "And I'm just starting to realize it."

In one of his rare moments of pity, Dean shifted his weight until he was leaning solidly against her. "Everyone comes back wrong," he said, the words drifting to her ears along a puff of beer-flavored breath. "Doesn't make you special."

The Slayer looked away and stared into the amber depths of her drink. She was not interested in pity. "I finally get it," she mumbled after a long moment. "That weird saying on that HBO show you liked. 'What's dead can never die.' Of course they can't. Because even if you bring them back, they aren't alive again. Not enough to count, anyway."

"Faith." He gripped her chin and turned her towards him and away from the bourbon. "You getting suicidal on me, zombie girl?" he asked, lowering his voice. 'Cause you know, sweetheart, if you want to die that badly, I can do it myself. No need to outsource the wet-work."

"No." The woman grit her teeth. "I'm just not sure this is working for me."

"So why not get lost? You can always leave."

Faith took a hasty gulp of her drink. A few droplets slid down her chin as she said, borderline hysterical, "You mean I can try. You or Crowley, someone's gonna drag me back in, and I don't frakking care anymore, Dean. I don't frakking care if you live or if you die."

"Except that you do," he corrected her. He took the bourbon from her and finished it in one go.

"Except that I do," she admitted with a frustrated toss of her hair. "Because it's the one g-ddamned thing the Veil left of me. It's funny – I think I used to love you, once upon a time. Now I don't even like you."

"Mmm." Dean nodded at the bartender for a refill.

"Anyway, it doesn't matter," continued Faith furiously. "None of it matters anymore." Her mouth twisted in disgust. "So I'm gonna sweat my brains out on that dance floor and go home with a stranger." She turned to leave the bar but found Dean blocking her way. "Christo," she hissed at him venomously.

Flinching, the demon took a step back. "Careful," he taunted. "Just because you're dead doesn't mean you can't get the clap."

"Wait too long, and your little blonde'll wander off with someone else," she shot back. "Now get out of my way."

He pressed the keys to the Chevy into her hand as she pushed past him, another unexpected gesture of pity. "Here. Go clear up that vamp nest, then take a few days and straighten yourself out. You're no use to me like this."

Faith screamed internally. She had frakking had it with being 'of use' to people. If that was all her life was . . . if that was all that was left . . . she had more than half a mind to take those keys and take that car and drive it straight off a cliff. Only then she would be stuck back in the Veil, unable to move forward or backwards, trapped.

She slammed her shoulder into his. "Damn you, Dean Winchester." Faith bit her lip to force back the moisture burning in the backs of her eyes. "God. Damn. You."

He ignored her outburst. "We're headed to Santa Fe next. Meet us there when you finish."

"I ain't coming back." The Slayer walked away.

His quiet laugh floated to her as she stormed across the dance floor, galling in its condescension. "Sure you ain't, darlin'."

* * *

**June 7th, 2016, Salt Lake City, Utah, 10:27 p.m.**

"What can I get you, honey?" the overweight, middle-aged bartender asked her with a friendly smile.

Normally, Faith would have taken out the woman's eye for that, but tonight she just let it pass. "Whiskey. Strongest and cheapest you got."

Something in her tone must have tipped the old lady off, for she pressed, "You okay, hon?"

"Not really." The Slayer forced a grin, but all she felt was sick. "Existential crisis. Kinda just wanna get drunk, maybe find somebody to take my mind off things." Alone in this bar, with no one who knew her name or her face or even a page of the pathetic tragedy that was her god-forsaken life, honesty came easily.

"I get off at eleven," interjected the other, younger, male bartender from across the bar.

Accepting her whiskey from the too-friendly woman, Faith looked him up and down. Tall, dark blonde, clear grey eyes – she guessed he would come in at a solid 8.5. Eleven was still three hours out from now. That gave her plenty of time to find a demon bar, pick a fight, win that fight, and tidy up in some women's restroom. She grinned and ran her thumb across the side of her whiskey glass, already damp with condensation. "Eleven, huh? We'll see if I'm around."

* * *

**June 8th, 2016, Tempe, Arizona, 2:43 a.m.**

When the nightly call came in, Crowley was grateful that his errant demonic charge was far across the room, serenading the other bar-goers to a truly unfortunate version of Right Said Fred's "I'm Too Sexy." He asked his informant, "Where is she now?"

"Salt Lake City," came the quick response.

He had to hand it to Phillips. The man – demon – was always the consummate professional when it came to jobs such as this one. "What is she doing?"

"She just gutted a vamp she found trying to chow down on a homeless person."

"You mean staked," Crowley corrected with a twinge of irritation. "She _staked_ a vampire."

Phillips stuck to his guns. "No, boss," he insisted. "Gutted. She sliced him to ribbons, and then she staked him."

A little more brutal than the King of Hell would have expected, but not entirely out of line with Wolfram and Hart's original psych profile from their first contact with the Slayer. "Fascinating. What would be your assessment?"

"She's devolving, my lord. Falling apart. The further away from Winchester she gets, the worse her control becomes."

Still keeping one eye pinned on Dean at the microphone, Crowley ran a thumb across his bottom lip in thought. "How did she act? After, I mean."

His informant cleared his throat. "She told the homeless man to run, and then she sat there in that alleyway for a good half-hour, staring at nothing."

"And then?" the King of Hell prompted.

For the first time, distaste entered Phillips' voice. "She pretended to be a hooker and beat the sh-t out of the john who tried to pick her up," he explained. "After that, she went back to the first bar she started out in and found some guy to do her in an alleyway on his smoke break."

"Just think, the Slayer has only been gone for two days," mused Crowley.

"Yes, my lord."

"And the Slayers? How goes their search?"

"They've got multiple groups, sir. The closest to her location are the vampires Angelus and William the Bloody."

He could have predicted that. Angelus and Spike had experience, experience which most of the motley vigilante crew who called themselves Slayers lacked. Of course Buffy Summers would be sending in her hounds to bring her lost sister to bay. Not that it would do them any good in the end. The King said, "Very well, Phillips. Stay close on her heels, but don't let her see you."

"Of course not, my lord," Phillips assured him. "I change meatsuits twice a day."

"Good. Keep me apprised of her next moves?"

"Yes, my lord."

_Click_.

Returning his phone to its place inside his suit jacket pocket, Crowley took a long, slow sip from his gin and tonic. His three-week experiment with the Slayer was quickly running its course. He suspected there were only five days left, at best. He hoped she would accelerate her fall to rock bottom and return to Santa Fe before her remaining days elapsed. She would have to, if the King wanted a chance at postponing her expiration date.

The demon wrinkled his nose and finished his gin. Another case of Sam Winchester's sh-tty shellwork striking yet again. He turned in his chair to watch Dean murdering yet another karaoke classic. Well, at least someone was having fun.

* * *

**July 8th, 2016, El Reno, Nevada, 7:19 p.m.**

She had been sitting at the diner booth for less than ten minutes when the vampire walked in. She sensed him from the moment the door opened, swiveling on her blue vinyl seat to take in the familiar black duster, peroxide blond hair, and pointed chin. Faith growled as he dropped onto the bench seat across from her. "How did you find me?"

"How do you think?"

"I don't know, Spike." She ripped the paper top off of her straw wrapper and let it fall to the cracked formica table top. "That's why I asked."

"See," said the blond conversationally, "the funny thing is, there's been at least a dozen Slayers scouring this country for you, following a trail of vampire and demonic deaths from New Jersey to Wyoming to California and back to Denver – rumor has it that twenty vampires disappeared overnight there a couple of nights ago – you wouldn't know anything about that, would you?"

"Nope. Doesn't ring any bells." Faith shoved an onion ring smeared with ketchup into her mouth.

"Uh huh." He did not believe her, and thy both knew it. "Be that as it might, the most clever brains of the Slayer Organization have been combing every inch of the West looking for you and your, uh, boyfriend."

"Not my boyfriend," said the Slayer automatically.

Spike knew better than to pursue a dead-end argument. "Right. Well, none of 'em has had the slightest shadow of luck. And then suddenly this afternoon you check your email address from a very public Internet café, and now, well, here we are. If I didn't know better, I would say that you wanted me to find you."

In lieu of replying, Faith ate another two onion rings and took a swing from her beer bottle. "Where's Angel?"

"'Scuse me?" The vampire feigned shock.

"You really think I'd log-in to an email account and not take as much advantage of the chance for cross-surveillance as I could? Come on, Spike. You know me better than that. No one's changed the admin passwords to the list-serve since I died," she told him with the air of one being unnecessarily helpful. "You might want to have somebody look into that."

"So you read all our correspondence." He really did not want to think about what that might mean. The email and forum threads had become very heated in the last ten days, since her return from the grave had become common Slayer knowledge.

Faith shrugged. "Basically. Might've done one or two other things while I was there."

"Viruses?"

"No." The Slayer shook her head. "Why would I frak up Slayer operations? That's not what I want at all."

"What do you want?" asked Spike curiously. It was becoming more and more clear that this was a set-up. But he didn't mind. The supposedly evil undead Slayer seemed more tired than anything to him, and she was attacking her burger and onion rings with the fervor of the almost-starving. He wondered when she had last eaten.

"Another beer would be nice," answered the woman. She set her empty bottle back on the table and picked up her cheeseburger. "But you didn't answer my question. Where's Angel?"

"I sent him on a wild goose chase," the vampire admitted after a beat of silence. "He isn't quite in a diplomatic frame of mind where you're concerned. Buffy's filled his head with all her fears, and you know that doesn't tend to be the part of his body he thinks with."

"Not where B's concerned, anyway." Faith's eyes narrowed. "What makes you different?"

"The thing is, me, I like broken things."

The brunette chewed thoughtfully on her cheeseburger but did not bother to deny the statement. It was true enough.

"So." Spike filched an onion ring and bit into it. The crispy fried breading crunched between his teeth. "Why did you want to meet?"

"I figured someone would come after that IP address, but I wasn't sure who. I had no idea that it would be you." She wiped a glob of mustard out of the corner of her mouth with a napkin. "Guess that's why we're having this conversation all nice and civilized in here instead of over a fistfight in the back parking lot."

"And here I thought it was your stomach growling that dictated the setting of our discussion."

She lifted her shoulders in a gesture of sheer unconcern. "Could be." The woman held out her hand. "You got a smoke?"

"You can't light up inside restaurants anymore," Spike reminded her. "But after, sure."

"Great." The Slayer reached back down for her cheeseburger. "So, you gonna buy me that beer or not?"

"Why are we here, Faith?" It was time for her to stop dodging the question.

Glancing off to the side, she admitted, "I needed to know. What the story is, how close you all are, if there's any way to buy you lot off."

Spike frowned. "No one really knows the story. Other than Sam Winchester bringing you back to chase down his brother, who made a deal with Cain and is now some immortal brand-bearing Knight of Hell, and said Knight of Hell busting you out of police custody in New Jersey a week and a half ago."

"Ha." Faith laughed dryly. "That's pretty much it."

"Where is your flannel aficionado, by the way?" the vampire asked in a too-innocent voice. "Unusual for you two not to be attached at the hip, isn't it?"

"No idea where he is," said the Slayer curtly. "We split in Denver."

"That explains the twenty vamps dead in one night," Spike muttered under his breath.

Faith pretended not to have heard him. "How many people does Buffy have out looking for me?"

"Almost all of them. Your girls are the closest."

"Dammit." The Slayer pursed her lips. "I don't want them to find me."

"You want anyone to find you?"

Reluctantly, the woman admitted to herself that he had a point. "No, not particularly. But I especially don't want them to find me, not when Dean's around."

"You two planning on meeting back up?"

His subtle fishing for information was not lost on Faith. She chuckled at him and polished off the final bite of her cheeseburger. "I don't know," she said honestly. "I was pretty pissed three days ago. Now, though, I'm not sure."

Spike waited patiently for her to continue, and sure enough, the Slayer took the bait.

"I guess," mused the woman slowly, "I guess I thought that I would feel more free away from him and Crowley."

The vampire raised his scarred eyebrow. "Crowley's part of this, too?" Buffy had suggested as much, but it meant more to have Faith confirm it.

"How do you think I was clearing out so many nests and covens so fast? He's got good information."

"Of course he does; he's the King of Hell."

"Not the first demon I've worked with," Faith grumbled to her dinner plate.

"Certainly not the most interesting." Spike leaned in closer to her. "Tell me more about your breakup with Winchester."

The Slayer shrugged a second time. "Not much to tell. I felt claustrophobic. I thought I'd feel better on my own."

"And do you?" he wondered.

"No. I don't feel much of anything, really." Faith reached for the last onion ring.

"Buffy felt like that. When she first came back. Have you thought about talking to her?" Even as he asked the question, the vampire knew it was a mistake.

Faith snorted. "I'd rather die," she said shortly.

Spike did not doubt for a moment that she meant it.

"Well." She rose from the booth. "Thanks for the dinner, Spike. Give Angel a kiss for me. Tell him I'm happier this way."

"You're not happy."

"No," the Slayer admitted. "No, I'm not. But, you know, I never was very happy when I was alive the first time, either."

"They would take you back – Buffy, Lil, Beck, Angel – they'd all welcome you back in an instant." It was a last ditch attempt to change her mind.

"Thanks for the offer, but I'm tired of chains."

He was not going to let her get away with that one. "And that's why you're throwing your lot in with that black-eyed wonder of yours? You trying to tell me he just lets you be and do whatever you want, no questions asked?"

"I don't know," said the Slayer truthfully. "I don't know where I'm going or if I'm staying. I just know that I can't go back."

And without waiting for the check or the promised cigarettes, she walked out of the diner and disappeared into the Arizona night.

* * *

Spike gave the Slayer a good thirty minutes' head start before he phoned in the reinforcements. "Easy, girls," he quieted their uproar of questions and concern. "I found her."

"And?" demanded both Becka and Lily in unison.

The vampire shook his head. They were too much alike, too reliant on each other. Always had been, ever since Faith had taken them under her wing. "And she doesn't want to be found."

"Is she evil?" Becka breathed.

"Is she okay?" Lily asked at the same moment.

"She's . . . five by five. But I don't think it's going to be enough."

"Oh." The disappointment in Becka's tone was clear. "You think Buffy's still full-speed ahead, then?"

He had yet to call the head Slayer, but Spike already knew what her answer would be. "Yeah."

"Dang it," said Becka. "It won't be good if we corner her."

"Or him. He's probably worse."

The brunette laughed. "He's always worse. Definitely not the most well-adjusted crayon in the box."

"Faith moved past her crazy," concluded Lily sagely. "Dean always buried his."

As amusing as their double act usually was, Spike had neither the time nor the patience for it tonight. "Well, I don't think either of them is much into burying the crazy now," he cut the girls off. "They're both rolling in it."

"Like dogs in rotten fish guts?" proposed the blonde Slayer.

"Lily!" gasped Becka with more amusement than horror.

"I have a literary frame of mind, okay?" Lily defended herself.

Spike snorted. 'Literary' wasn't quite the word for it. "You have a dockside frame of mind."

"Maybe that, too," the woman capitulated.

In an attempt to bring the conversation back to the realms of the productive, Becka said, "So . . . so who's gonna get close to Buffy?"

"I'll do it," Spike answered firmly. "She trusts me."

"You mean she likes to bang you from time to time," muttered the engineer quietly.

Not quietly enough, for Lily burst into a peal of laughter. "See, I'm not the only one with a dockside frame of mind."

Despite of the urgency of the moment, the vampire found himself smiling. "And you two used to be so innocent. What happened to you?"

"Faith," said Becka.

"And Dean," added Lily.

"They happened to us."

* * *

**June 11th, 2012, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 1:39 a.m.**

She gently eased her way out from behind the wheel of the Chevy, her jeans liberally streaked with slime demon offal and effluvia, leaving splotches of dried muck on the upholstery behind her. The night had started out simply enough, with a beer and a game of pool, but it had ended, the way so many evenings often did, with a desperate scuffle in a dark side street. And somehow, somewhere in the middle of the scuffle, she had decided to drive to Santa Fe.

Finding her former posse's hotel was not difficult. Faith simply checked the first motel under the 'A's in the yellow pages, and then the second name under the 'B's. She hit pay-dirt with the third name under 'C,' played the 'I'm looking for my brother' card with the bleary-eyed clerk at the front desk, and jimmied the door open with a couple of bobby pins. Stepping inside, she found the place deserted except for the snoring, sprawled form of Dean Winchester draped across one of the beds. He opened one eye when she walked in, muttered her name, and then instantly passed out again.

Faith rinsed off the slime demon gunk under the hot spray of the shower as quickly as she could and changed into clean clothes. Her head was throbbing, and she could feel exhaustion deep in her bones, but she was also filled with a murky sort of satisfaction from her entanglement with the slime demon. As it turned out, the Mark of Cain was not the only thing that required blood to keep it lying dormant.

When she returned to the bedroom, the demon had his meaty fists spread out all over the pillows, and Faith did not feel like a two a.m. wrestling match. Sure, she could take the other queen bed, but that meant she would end up kipping with Crowley, whenever the King of Hell chose to come in. Instead, she lay down on top of the covers beside Dean, resting her head on the demon's flattened stomach. The Slayer curled into a ball along the curve of his body, the warmth of his skin like a furnace against her back and under her cheek.

Dean muttered in his sleep, a nonsensical string of sounds that could not be arranged into words, but he did not stir except to move instinctively closer to her, until no space remained between his legs and her back.

The woman exhaled, a slow, silent release of fatigue, tension, and resignation. For better or worse, she was choosing a side. And yet . . . . The monster inside her was quiet. The demon beside her was quiet. Everything was quiet.

Finally, Faith could sleep.

* * *

**June 11th, 2016, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 8:41 a.m.**

When morning came, Faith found herself alone in the bed. Across the room, the demon was watching her from the lone creaking wooden chair, his eyes an innocent green for once. "Welcome back," he said lightly, as if she had just stepped out for a milk run.

"Yep," was the terse response. Faith wondered briefly what time it was. She was still so tired.

"Thanks for cleaning out the car, by the way. It was starting to smell like Crowley's dirty laundry."

She could barely remember that, her frenzied removal of all the fast food wrappers and scrubbing down every inch of the Impala's interior until it practically sparkled. That must have been yesterday morning, back when she had had some actual energy. "You're welcome," she finally said, wondering why he didn't mention the bits of slime demon blood that she felt sure had been coating the steering wheel.

"I got you coffee." He nodded towards the McDonalds cup perched on the nightstand.

Faith raised her eyebrows. "That was nice of you."

"Nice had nothing to do with it. There's something that only you can do for me."

Ahh. This was much more like it. "What do you need me to do?" asked Faith without hesitation. She reached for her coffee and took a single, scalding sip. Black with one sugar and one cream. Damn him, but he knew what she liked.

"I got a call last night from some redneck kid who's holding Sam hostage. Not sure how he got Crowley's number, but he probably nicked it out of Sam's phone. Anyway, he's promising to kill my darling little brother if I don't show up and take his place."

She struggled to make sense of all of this. "And you want me to go to the rescue?"

"Nah." Dean tossed her a paper bag. Its insignia matched that of her coffee. "Have a McMuffin. I told him that I didn't care what he did with my sonnuvabitch brother. If he kills Sam, I'll find him one day and pay him back for it – slowly, over days. But if Sam's not competent enough to outwit one single nutcase, he's kinda got torture and death coming to him, don't you think?"

"Mmph," said Faith noncommittally through a mouthful of egg and sausage.

"Thing is, it got me thinking, and it's time to take you up on your plan."

"My _what_?" The Slayer almost choked on her breakfast. She had had a plan? That was news to her. "Excuse me?"

"Your plan. You had your three days to freak out and now it's time to pull it together. Yeah, whatever, so someone made you come back, and you're tired and pissed and beginning to realize that not everything behind those pretty brown eyes is quite the way you left it. It's time to man up, Faith. You didn't like my divorce strategy last week, so I wanna hear yours."

"You didn't have a divorce strategy last week," she snapped petulantly.

Dean said nothing, merely continued to watch her, his green eyes cold chips of ice in an impassive face.

"This alliance thing that we've got going on," Faith began carefully, "it ain't gonna last."

"I know."

"And it's not just your brother and some redneck kid on our heels," the Slayer continued. "I ran into Spike, while I was out."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. I thought about leaving him unconscious in a Lutheran church at sunrise," she admitted. It had been a tempting thought, but in the end, it would have taken too much time and effort, unless he provoked her to it.

"Did you?"

"No. He didn't chase me."

"Pity." Dean's mouth twisted into a garish grin. "He'd make one hell of a bonfire."

Faith shook off the mental image that particular sentence created. "That's not the point. The Slayers have made tracking you and me down kind of priority numero uno. And they're not afraid to use dirty tactics to get information. They aren't gonna leave us alone, Dean. You know that as well as I do."

"Why didn't you go back to them, then? If escape is futile." His unrelenting gaze was boring into her brown eyes. Faith refused to flinch.

"Because I want to live on my own damn terms for once. And honestly, I don't care if you tag along or if you don't. But I am finished being your sidekick."

"You've got big plans," surmised the demon.

"You could say that. What's dead can never die, Dean," she reminded him. "You can't die, and I can't exactly go anywhere, either. Heaven's closed. Hell's not my preferred retirement home. So we –"

"We?"

"A temporary we," the Slayer amended. "We might as well just – "

"Take over the world?" suggested Dean sarcastically.

"No." Faith would not be needled. Not when she was finally feeling a sense of clarity again. "Metatron. I'm going to kill Metatron."

Dean leaned forward in his chair, curious. This was bold and ambitious. To be completely truthful, it was far more ambitious than he had been expecting. "You want to break into Heaven and murder the head angel? Why?"

Faith smiled the bitter smile of those with nothing to lose. "Why not?" she posed the rhetorical question. "Besides, it's his fault I'm even here."

"So I should send him a fruit basket?" the demon teased.

"As long as you put a stick of dynamite in that fruit basket, I don't see why not." After wadding up the empty McDonalds bag, the woman chucked it towards the trash can beside the door.

"Mmm." Dean mulled the proposition over in his head. "He is obnoxious."

"Mmhmm." She did not press. It was always best to let the demon come to his own conclusions.

"And he did kill me," he said thoughtfully.

Standing from her chair, Faith moved across the faded motel carpet. "Mmhmm."

"Okay," the demon made his decision. "I'm in. You got any ideas on how you're going to execute this little plan of yours? I mean, do you even know where the stairway to Heaven's located?"

The Slayer paused in the doorway to the bathroom. Even super hot undead Vampire Slayers needed to brush their teeth from time to time. "That depends."

"On?"

"What's your ethical stance on angel torture?"

"That's my girl." Dean's sh-t-eating grin widened. "Keep talking."


	13. Nothing But the Rain

* * *

**June 11th, 2016, Santa Fe, New Mexico**

Demon bars, despite their usefulness in most other situations, were less than helpful when it came to locating angels. Faith spent the entire day threatening anything with horns or scales that she could lay her eyes on, but when midnight rolled around, she was no further along her path to tracking down an angel than she had been when she started. To make matters even more irritating, the demon at her heels had been of little use. He loomed behind her at all their stops during the first half of the day, but then he had ditched her for a strip club around noon, and she did not see him again until he waltzed into the motel room half an hour after she got back.

"Any luck?" he asked casually from the doorway, as if he didn't give a damn. Which, Faith supposed, he probably didn't.

She wanted to call him out for his sheer obnoxiousness, but Faith restrained herself. Instead, she answered the question. "No joy." The Slayer exhaled in frustration. "I think it's time for plan B."

"Plan B?" The demon opened his mouth, most likely to make a birth control joke, but Faith headed him off at the pass.

"We ask Crowley. He's got to have at least one set of wings on his payroll. Or we could call your buddy Ca-"

"No," he said flatly, reluctant to complicate an already over-complicated situation. "You wanna talk to Crowley, be my guest. But I thought this was your divorce strategy?"

"If I can't get a divorce from you, why should you get one from our darling evil overlord?" grumbled the Slayer rhetorically.

"You chose to come back," Dean pointed out.

Faith scoffed, "Because I had nowhere else to go."

His eyes narrowed. "You're lying," he accused her. "You've got the whole damn country - hell, the whole damn world." He smiled coldly. "Or are you just like Crowley and Sam, and you can't leave me alone?"

The Slayer's mouth twisted into an ugly grimace. "You want the truth?" she snapped, finally running out of patience.

"Truth's always better than lies," said Dean shortly. "Thought you prided yourself on how you and I didn't lie to each other. How I would keep secrets from Castiel and my brother and everyone else who wanted a piece of me, but I never kept them from you." The muscles along his jaw tensed. "It made you feel special, didn't it?"

She chose not to answer that. "I came back because I was an idiot," Faith frowned at her own foolishness. "Because some dumb little girl part of me thought that you were mine. That you were the one thing in this whole g-ddammned world that had ever been mine. But I realize now how stupid that was. You weren't mine. You were always somebody else's - John's, Bobby's, Castiel's, Lisa's, Sam's - but not mine. Never mine."

Despite his distaste for how melodramatic this was all becoming, Dean realized that if he wanted to keep the Slayer nominally on his side and out of the looney bin that she was careening towards, he needed to say something placative. "And yet, for all of that, it's still you and me at the end of this, isn't it? Well, you, me, and Crowley."

It was if she had not heard him. "You don't need me. You don't even _want_ me. Why the hell did I come back for this?" Faith directed the last question to herself, her voice wavering uncertainly.

"Oh, sweetheart." Dean took her by the elbows, his fingers digging into her skin hard enough to hurt, but not quite hard enough to bruise. "I always _want_ you," he murmured, lowering his voice half an octave. "Body like yours, who wouldn't?"

Faith laughed, a high-pitched, unbalanced sound, and wrenched her arm loose to slap him across the face. "Get out."

Apparently, he had miscalculated. Wincing, Dean reached up to probe gently at the scarlet handprint on his cheek. "Excuse me?"

Having decided that he was beyond excusing, the Slayer did not bother with any words beyond the absolutely necessary ones. She shoved the demon in the chest, pushing him back towards the door. "Out!" she hissed. "Out! Out! Out!"

More from shock than a conscious desire to go, the demon allowed her to force him all the way out of the motel room and into the hallway. Faith slammed the door shut furiously, and the dead-bolt clicked into place behind him.

Shoving his hands into his pockets, Dean wandered back towards the car. He had seen a dive bar not too far from here on his way over. Maybe he would go drink for a while, until the Slayer got over her freakout. It wasn't like her. Faith Lehane had been a wide variety of things, but prone to hysterics was not one of them. Lately, however, more and more often she was unable to keep it together.

If he had cared, Dean would have wondered what the hell was her problem. But that, he reminded himself firmly, had been the him of the past. The new and improved version of Dean Winchester did not care at all. This was inconvenient, and nothing more.

* * *

As soon as she had kicked the demon out, Faith cleared the motel room carpet and got to work. She laid down a line of salt in front of the doors and windows and then retreated to the bathroom, where she drew a narrow summoning circle in chalk on the linoleum. The Slayer set a metal travel mug in the center of the circle and stuffed thyme and sage into the mug before tossing a lit match in afterwards. She had stolen the herbs from a spell-casting kit filched from the secret compartment in the trunk of the Impala. All her ingredients assembled, Faith muttered an incantation under her breath and waited for her visitor to appear.

"Hiya, sweat pea," said Richard D. Wilkins III, former Mayor of Sunnydale and ascended demon, staring at his summoner, who was seated in the bathtub, her arms wrapped around her knees. He took in the half-wild, distracted expression on her face, and he prompted soothingly, "What's wrong, buttercup? How can your old man help?"

"I'm in trouble, boss," said Faith, her calm voice a sharp contrast to her trembling fingers. "Big trouble."

The Mayor raised his eyebrows, but he said only, "What do you need?"

Ideally, Faith needed a way to summon and trap an angel. But right now, she would settle for advice - and maybe a little comfort. The irony of the situation was not lost on her. She had come so far, and yet here she was once again, in a crappy motel where the only person she could trust was a dead demon.

"What do you want to do?" Wilkins asked when she had finished catching him up on her return from the grave.

Clearing her throat, the Slayer admitted, "I feel like I'm dying, boss." Her chest burned as she finally said the words that had been swirling around her head for the last three days, ever since she left Spike behind in that diner in Reno. "Not on the outside, but the inside. Everything is . . . empty. It's - It's almost worse than when I was a ghost."

"But not quite bad enough to make you want to be a ghost again?" he guessed shrewdly.

"No. I wish . . ." Faith hesitated, then gulped and went on. "If there was a way to cease to exist, like those lights that you just clap, and then they're off - well, I'd take that route. But all my options are as bad as here - or worse."

"And so you want to spread the pain by eliminating God's former secretary? Will that really help?"

It was the Slayer's turn to raise her eyebrows. "You telling me that you never went after a little revenge?"

The Mayor's gaze darkened. "Careful now, sweet pea," he warned, his tone just a shade too light to be considered threatening. "No need to be disrespectful."

"Sorry, boss," apologized Faith out of habit. She glanced back down at her knees.

"And your young man's no help these days?" prompted the demon curiously.

She did not bother to ask which young man the Mayor was referring to. In all of their conversations, there had only ever been just the one young man. "Not really," she explained, finally allowing her distaste with the demon her best friend had become to show. "He's vicious, lazy, bored - he'll only help me if he sees something in it for him."

"I'm sorry, firecracker."

Faith wiped angrily at the escaping tears leaking down her cheeks. "Yeah. Me, too."

* * *

**June 12th, 2016, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 12:05 a.m.**

Crowley found himself a booth in the darkest corner of the bar and listened to Phillip's evening report, swirling a celery stick in his Bloody Mary and pondering the dubious delights of fried potato skins. They were only six dollars - seven if he splurged on sour cream and bacon . . .

"And what did she do today?" he asked Phillips, forcing himself to momentarily abandon his contemplation of greasy bar food.

"Angel hunting, I believe, my lord," said Phillips in his usual emotionless tone.

"Curious." The King of Hell took a single sip from his Bloody Mary and then snapped the celery stick in half. The sound of the breaking celery was quite satisfactory, but the taste left something to be desired, and his stomach growled in protest.

"She mentioned something to Winchester about assassinating Metatron."

It was a terrible idea. Crowley crunched down onto the remaining half of the celery stick, swallowed, and said, "They will never succeed."

"Yes, sir."

"Still, I suppose it will be entertaining to watch them try," the demon mused. He had not had a chance to examine the Slayer that morning - for once, he had found himself quite at a loss for a good excuse. Perhaps it was the foursome that Dean had orchestrated the night before - hours ahead of the time that the Slayer returned to Santa Fe. A good foursome tended to leave the brain scrambled for longer than the King of Hell could really afford.

"Yes, sir."

"She'll come to me, sooner or later, when her search exhausts itself." And then he would have the chance to see if her three weeks were up. "How many angels do we know the locations of at the moment, Phillips?"

"Twelve hundred and sixty-three, my lord."

Crowley clucked his tongue. "Very good. Very good, indeed, Phillips. When this is over, remind me that it's time to discuss your promotion."

"Yes, my lord. Thank you, my lord."

After ending the call, the King of Hell quickly polished off the last few ounces of his Bloody Mary and slowly made his way up to the bar. His stomach had won, and potato skins it would be. Hardly had Crowley placed his order when the door to the bar swung open and a grim-faced Dean Winchester stalked into the building. Crowley instantly knew that Something with a capital S was up. He ordered a second round of potato skins from the bartender and then turned to the younger demon. "Where is the Slayer?" he asked as innocently as he could manage.

Dean's shrug was a masterclass in surliness. "At the motel. She kicked me out."

"And you let her?"

The demon shrugged a second time. "I'd already emptied the mini-bar. Besides, I'm in the mood for a blonde tonight, not a scrawny brunette."

"Mmm." Deciding to push a few buttons, Crowley muttered under his breath, "I should have known."

As he had intended, the black-eyed demon whirled on him angrily. "What does that mean?" he snarled, gesturing to the man behind the bar for a whiskey.

In for a penny, in for a pound. Besides, it was always more interesting to put his cards on the table – well, whatever cards that he wanted people to think that he had. The King of Hell purred, "That you would still be in love with the Slayer."

Dean frowned at him. "I'm not in love with her," he growled. "I was never in love with her."

_I do not get paid enough for this,_ Crowley thought to himself, although he had to struggle to keep the smirk off of his face. Human or demon, Dean Winchester was surprisingly easy to provoke, if you knew where to find the chinks in his armor. Aloud, he said, "Then why is she here? Why is walking away so hard for you?"

"What – you want her gone?" Dean attempted to turn the tables.

"I didn't say that."

The demon threw back his whiskey and glared at Crowley. "Then what the hell is it that you want?"

"I was thinking . . . " It was indeed an idea that the King of Hell had been tossing around, but not one that he had seriously considered. He broached it now to further wind the other demon up. "The angels have their Nephilim, as rare as they are, and those are surprisingly powerful."

"Get to the point," growled Dean.

"It makes one wonder, doesn't it?" mused Crowley. "How powerful the child of a Vampire Slayer and a Knight of Hell might be."

"How much have you been drinking?" demanded the black-eyed demon incredulously. "You'd have to be wasted out of your mind to think Zombie Girl would ever go along with that."

"I didn't say that she had to agree," he continued to push the idea, mostly out of curiosity to see what would happen next. "Would you do it?"

Dean shrugged. "Screwing her's never really been that difficult," he said, inwardly thinking that they needed to put pedal to the metal on the escape strategy. "So why the hell not?"

* * *

**June 12th, 2016, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 3:25 a.m.**

Many hours later, Dean left Crowley alone at the bar and returned to the motel room. If Faith had recovered from her bizarre fit, he needed to have a little talk with her. This angel-hunting thing was fine and all, but the demon thought it might be a good idea to speed up their timeline a bit more. He wanted freedom, and he wanted it now.

As his earlier conversation with Crowley tumbled over and over through his mind, Dean slipped into bed beside the silent Slayer. He jerked the covers up and over his bare legs - for decency's sake, he had acquiesced to Faith's demands that he at least wear boxers if he was going to bunk with her. He could have slept with Crowley, if he really wanted - to be frank, either of them could have. But neither of them did. The demon did not rationalize this to himself. The reaction of his body as he scooted across the linen sheets closer to the Slayer was rationalization enough.

"Your feet are cold," grumbled Faith when the sole of his foot brushed against her ankle. Apparently she was not asleep after all.

He forewent the apology, instead wondering, "You still campaigning for Bedlam?" The demon reached across the empty space between them and wove his hand into her hair, his fingertips pressing against her scalp and feeling their way over the ridges and bumps at the base of her skull.

Damning herself for not pushing him away, Faith leaned back into the contact. "Can't say that it would be worse than this, with you always worming your way into my bed," she muttered. "Why don't you kip with Crowley for once?"

"He likes to cuddle."

"And you don't?" she scoffed. "What happened to the good old 'your side, my side, demilitarized zone in the middle'? You're a hell of a lot snugglier than you used to be pre-demon."

"So are you," said Dean, his voice low and scratchy in his throat, and he continued to massage her scalp, his fingers working their way up to the top of her head.

The Slayer shrugged. "No point in not doing what feels good. Not anymore." Closing her eyes, she allowed herself to pretend for a mere milisecond that it was her friend lying there in the dark behind her, and not the douchebag jackass that he had become.

"Speaking of things that feel good . . ." The demon's fingers trailed through her hair, over the hollow of her throat to the curve of her shoulder, then down to her elbow and back up again, "Crowley wants us to procreate."

"That's not funny," she said in a knee-jerk response, unable to pretend any longer.

"I thought it was." His hand continued its journey downwards, gliding along the outside edge of her ribs, pressing more firmly against the softened concavity of her stomach and pausing just above the waistband of her sweatpants. "He wasn't joking."

Faith rolled over to face him, her brown eyes narrowed. Thankfully, the movement relocated his hand to safer spaces. "You have _got_ to be kidding me," she hissed, lowering her voice to just above a whisper.

"Not kidding."

Fighting the urge to slap him again, the Slayer rubbed frustratedly at her eyes. "This isn't some kind of Shakespearian farce, Dean."

"You steal that line from Lily?" he snarked back at her.

"Don't talk about Lily," Faith ordered sharply. "I'm . . ." She exhaled through her teeth. "There is no imaginable world in which I would _ever_ have children. Let alone with a demon for a father and Fairy Godmother Crowley." The Slayer trembled - whether with rage or fear, Dean wasn't entirely sure.

"I know that," he said, injecting his tone with a modicum of comfort. He had intended to tease her, not put her back on the express train to Crazyville. It wouldn't do to get the plan any more screwed up by the Slayer spazzing out now. "I told him to sober up."

Ignoring him, Faith muttered, "I need to get out of here." She scrambled off of the mattress and hurriedly began changing her clothes.

"Stop," commanded Dean when she tugged and kicked her way out of her sweatpants, giving him a good view of her legs and her hips.

"What?" snapped Faith, but she paused anyway.

"Look at your hands."

In confusion, the Slayer glanced down. Her hands were liberally stained crimson. She looked further and found the source: a gaping wound in her abdomen, just above and to the left of her bony right hip. How could she not have noticed it? She glanced back to the demon in horror. "What did you do?"

Dean rose from the bed, his hands extended in a calming gesture. "Slayer - "

"What did you do to me?" she demanded, her voice shaking.

"Zombie Girl," he said soothingly, "hang on."

The Slayer stumbled backwards away from him, until she ran out of room and her backside collided with the dresser against the far wall. Her hands scrabbled over the dresser top in search of a weapon, and then her fingers closed around the hilt of the First Blade. Teeth bared, she jerked the donkey jawbone up into a guard position in front of her.

Dean went rigid with tension when she picked up the Blade. He infused his tone with every bit of the not-inconsiderable seduction and persuasion at his disposal. "Faith." Her name was a prayer falling from his lips. "Faith, put that down."

Her chest heaved as she hyperventilated. "What did you do?" she repeated, panicking. "This is . . . This was . . ." She reached down with trembling fingers to probe the bleeding wound, then withdrew her hand as if she had been burned. " _Buffy_ did this."

"Ehem." They had a visitor. In their heated discussion, they had not noticed the motel room door creak open and Crowley join them. The King of Hell snapped his fingers. Faith's eyes rolled back into her head, and she crumpled to the floor.

"Well," said Crowley, nudging the door closed with his foot as Dean pulled the First Blade out of the Slayer's hand and lifted the unconscious, still-bleeding woman by her armpits to deposit her on the bed. "I think it's time we all had a talk."

"What the hell?" Dean pushed the Slayer into a somewhat-upright position against the pillows of the bed that they had been sharing and then reached for his jeans. He had a sinking feeling that whatever sleep he had been going to get tonight was gone for good. Turning to glare at Crowley, he demanded, "You know something about this?"

The King of Hell shook his head. "Know? No. I have my suspicions. If I may –" he pushed past the younger demon to place a hand on Slayer's forehead. "I need to take a look."

Just as he had three weeks before, Crowley focused his energy and pushed. It was less difficult than it had been the first time, which did not fill him with confidence. In mere moments, it was clear to the King what was happening. The binding that he had placed on the Slayer was fading The gleaming ribbons of crimson magic that he had used to tether her soul to her recreated body were now nothing more than rusty, tattered fragmented threads. He had planned to fix things, to enact a more permanent solution. Unfortunately, that would no longer be an option.

When he removed his hand, the Slayer's eyes opened, and she stared up at him with resignation. Whatever it was he was about to say, she had already decided on the worst.

"So?"

Crowley cleared his throat. When he spoke, he addressed his fellow demon. "The geas that your brother installed has run its course. It looks as though Samuel did not think far enough ahead to manage the unfortunate after effects. If I understand what I saw correctly – which I do – the Slayer will be destroyed by all the wounds that her original body ever withstood. Quite clever, actually. Nasty, but clever."

Faith went ghostly pale. The bloodiest moments of her life flashed through her mind, and she gulped. There was no way that this could end well. "Did you know about this?" she croaked, her resignation giving way to dread. "Before?"

"I wasn't sure," admitted the King of Hell. "And there was no way to check which exact resurrection spell was used – not without calling on Jolly Green, anyway. This is a very obscure side effect of some of the worse resurrection rituals. He probably had no idea what would happen."

Mind racing, the Slayer stared down at the blood oozing from the stab wound in her side. Now that she thought about it, the wound did hurt. It was a faint echo of the agony that had ripped through her when Buffy stabbed her for the first time, but it was still there. She would need to staunch the bleeding and clean herself up sooner rather than later. "This thing have an off-switch?" she asked the demon.

"Not in the lore."

"Can you fix it?"

"I am afraid not," said Crowley sadly.

"Dammit," muttered Faith to no one in particular. She glanced up from her hip to watch Dean, who had yet to say anything. His black eyes were fixed on the blood seeping between her fingers. "What about . . . " The Slayer thought frenziedly, casting around for straws. Maybe . . . maybe she could knock out two birds with one stone. Maybe she could make this work for her in some small way, after all. "What about the angels?" She added an extra note of hysteria to her tone. "Could the angels fix this?"

Crowley raised his eyebrows. "Perhaps," he said after a long moment's thought. "Their methods are different from mine. Why would they say yes?"

For the first time since the revelation that the Slayer was falling apart, Dean spoke, "I may have the answer to that," he said. "If we phrase it right, I can think of an angel who'd wet himself at the chance to help me. You have any idea how to find him?"

The King of Hell smiled coolly, his dark eyes giving away none of the thoughts behind them. "Yes. I believe that I can. I will need to speak to a few of my little birds."

"You see?" grumbled the Slayer at Dean. "This is what happens when you let him marathon Game of Thrones. He thinks he's Varys."

"Please," snorted Crowley. "I'm ever so much more fun than Varys."

"You do have a bigger sack," admitted Dean. "I'll give you that. But then again, he's a eunuch, so that's not saying much."

"So," said Faith, after Crowley had indignantly swept out of the room to contact whoever it was that he needed to contact, "you mind sewing this up for me?"

Pursing his lips, the black-eyed demon leaned in to take a closer look at the stab wound. "How deep does that go?" he asked gruffly.

Faith shrugged. "Don't remember." Nor did she want to. The original incident had not been a highlight of her adolescence. "Deeper than I wanted it to, but I don't think it hit any organs or guts or anything. It wasn't the knife so much as the fall and the blood loss that almost did me in."

"That why you're looking more albino than usual?" the demon half-teased.

"It's whatever. Just stitch it up so I'm not bleeding all over my damn pants, and get me some Gatorade. I'll be fine."

"Until you aren't." Dean stepped back out of the Slayer's way.

"Until I'm not," she agreed.

They retired to the bathroom, and Faith grit her teeth, chomping down on a folded-up washcloth while the demon sterilized the wound with half a bottle of Everclear and then began sewing the sides back together with a flame-heated needle and the tougher brand of dental floss. The Slayer remained silent while he worked, instead staring at the black mold growing on the wall above the shower head.

Once Dean finished, she had him leave while she rinsed the worst of the blood off of her body. Then Faith threw on a pair of clean jeans, a blue tank, and her black leather jacket before capturing her hair into a low ponytail and brushing her teeth. She gathered up the rest of her things into her duffel without favoring the ache at her hip. Sure, it hurt like stink, but it wasn't important. Not right now, anyway.

By the time she reemerged from the bathroom, Crowley had returned. He passed Dean a piece of paper with an address and a phone number written on it. "Good luck," he said with one of his trademark insincere smiles as the two of them trooped past him on their way out the door.

Faith flipped him the bird as she left, walking out into the cool night air. "You're driving," she informed Dean, and she sprawled out across the back seat of the Chevy. She lifted one of his abandoned jackets out of the floorboard and bunched it up to make an improvised pillow. "Wake me up when we get there."

"I ain't your chauffeur," Dean reminded her unnecessarily, but he didn't bother with an actual fight.

Once they had put an hour between themselves and the King of Hell, he spoke again. "We still doing this?"

Faith glanced up groggily from the backseat. "He's going to have people watching us, you know."

The demon scoffed at her. "He's had people watching you ever since you took a sabbatical last week."

"I wondered," muttered the Slayer to herself, a long-felt suspicion confirmed. "So I wasn't going crazy, then."

"Oh, I'd still say that you're going crazy," said Dean. "Just maybe not quite as crazy as you thought."

"I find it hard to imagine how you always score with the waitresses, what with how utterly charming you are and all," the Slayer grumbled, burrowing deeper into her jacket pillow.

Dean snorted. "You think they get the actual me?"

"Does anybody get the actual you?" Faith countered.

"Other than you and Crowley?"

"Seriously?"

"I see you, you see me, and if Crowley's very lucky, he'll catch you an' me in the shower and see us both."

Yawning, the Slayer said, "Dean, cut it out."

"What?" replied the demon, far too sweetly to be believed. "No point in lying to each other now, is there? Just tell me one thing - you really want this angel to heal you?" asked Dean.

But she had already fallen back asleep, and no answer would be forthcoming.

* * *

**June 12th, 2016, Breckenridge, Colorado, 11:30 a.m.**

They drove until they were a hundred miles away from the location that Crowley had given them, and then Dean tossed the burner cell phone that he carried in case of emergencies into the backseat with Faith. "Call him," he instructed.

Tossing her head to clear it of the last sleepy cobwebs, Faith crawled over the seat back into the front seat, carrying the phone back up with her. Ignoring the eye roll that the demon shot in her direction, the Slayer punched in the requisite ten numbers.

"Hello?" said a gravelly voice flavored with a touch of confusion.

"Castiel?" Faith infused all her panic and concern into her tone. "Cass, is that you?"

Dean flicked her on the knee. She glanced at him. "Don't overdo it," mouthed the demon.

" . . . Faith?" queried the angel, his confusion growing.

"Hey, Cass. It's me. I'm . . . I'm in a spot of trouble. Sam . . . Sam used a spell to resurrect me, and I think - I think there's been some consequences to it."

"Why don't you call Sam?" said the angel in a play for time.

"I . . I don't think he can help me. I'm - I'm on the run right now. Dean is - he's not himself, Cass. Something's horribly, horribly wrong, and I don't know why Sam sent me after him, but it was a really, really bad idea." A single tear slid down the Slayer's cheek and she sniffed loudly before asking in a very soft voice, "Can you help me?"

"What do you need?"

"I think . . ." Faith allowed her voice to trail away, and then she said, "I think I'm dying, Castiel. Please - please help me."

"Where are you right now?"

The Slayer looked down at the map spread out on the bench seat between herself and the driver. She raised her eyebrows at Dean and he stabbed one index finger down at the highway between Denver and Cheyenne. Faith gave them their approximate location and asked if he could meet her in the small town that was adjacent to Castiel's current hide-out. Then she ended the call.

"You realize this is going to turn into a trap, right?" said Dean stiffly when the woman chucked the burner phone back into his lap.

"Mmhmm." Faith stared out the window at the greenery flashing by outside. "Since when has that ever stopped us?"

Dean chuckled. "Never."

"How much holy oil do we got in the trunk?" wondered the Slayer.

"Enough. Plus I nicked a pair of handcuffs spelled in Enochian off of Crowley while you were using up all the hot water in New Mexico."

"By nicked, you mean that he offered them to you, didn't he?"

"I plead the fifth," said Dean.

"Cuffs, holy oil, the angel blade . . . I think we're set." Faith smiled grimly.

"You gonna kill him?" asked the demon nonchalantly after a beat of silence.

"I dunno. Are you?"

"Guess we'll find out."

* * *

**June 12th, 2016, Walden, Colorado, 11:50 a.m.**

Castiel waited for a moment after the Slayer hung up the phone before he began dialing out another number. Sam had given it to him a little over a week ago and made him promise to call if the Slayer or Dean should ever contact him.

On the third ring, a female voice answered.

"Hello?" The woman sounded vaguely familiar, but the angel could not quite place her voice.

"Hello," he responded. "This is Castiel. Sam Winchester told me to call this number in case of an emergency."

"Casti - oh. Hi, Castiel. I'm Buffy. We've met once, but maybe you don't remember." The Slayer on the other end of the line exhaled into the phone. "What can I do for you, Castiel?"

The angel explained, "I just received a call from Faith Lehane."

"And?" pressed Buffy.

"She asked for my help and told me to meet her at a particular address in two hours."

"Did she mention if Dean would be there?"

Castiel shook his head, and then belatedly realized that of course Buffy could not see him. "No. But I'm sure that he is," he added darkly.

"You think it's a trap?"

"It would not be surprising if it were. Faith and I have never been - what's the phrase? - on excellent terms, and I doubt that has changed."

"Okay." Buffy turned away from the phone and mumbled something incomprehensible. A male voice mumbled back at her. With a sharp cough, the Slayer resumed the call, "Thanks for the heads up, Castiel. Text me your coordinates, and I'll get my people there as soon as I can. We're running short on spell-casters at the moment, but we should be able to put at least a handful of Slayers in the field. When Faith and Dean show up, can you distract them long enough for us to reach you?"

"I can try," said Castiel. He did not mind acting as bait. Not really. Not if it meant that they could rescue Dean.

"Thank you."

* * *

**June 12th, 2016, Coalmont, Colorado, 1:05 p.m.**

Faith and Dean arrived at the rendezvous point thirty minutes early, a forlorn-looking warehouse on the edge of the an industrial town - well, as industrial as northern Colorado could get. The Slayer figured that it was probably an old mining town. Dean parked the Impala around the back, and he and Faith bent over the opened trunk to pull out this afternoon's tool kit.

After hefting a small amphora of holy oil into her duffel, Faith grabbed the handcuffs engraved in Enochian sigils and slipped her angel blade into the sleeve of her leather jacket.

"He'll be expecting trouble," warned the demon, striking down across the padlocked door with the First Blade. He shoved the door open along its sliding track, metal scraping across metal in a creaky whine of protest.

"Good," grunted Faith as she began to drizzle a thin trail of glistening oil in a large oval that stretched from the front door to the center of the warehouse. "This should be fun, then."

In the end, it was not quite as fun as she had anticipated. Castiel entered the warehouse twenty minutes later, his head swiveling from side to side like an owl's on its perch. From behind the door, Faith struck a match and stepped over the thin line of oil, dropping the lit match onto the ground as she did so.

Angel and Slayer were encompassed by a wall of roaring fire, the yellow-orange flames licking hungrily at the air around them, soaking up oxygen like parched ground in a desert after the first spring rainfall.

"Hey, Cass." Dean left the shadows on the far side of the warehouse floor. He strode slowly towards the fire, tapping an ominous tattoo with the First Blade against his thigh with every step. "Long time, no see."

Suddenly moving much faster, the demon walked through the holy fire without flinching, crossed the remaining concrete separating him from Castiel, and brought the hilt of the First Blade down solidly on the back of the angel's head. Castiel crumpled like a felled tree.

"Well," hummed Faith, bending over the fallen angel and snapping the bespelled manacles into place around his wrists, "that was easy."

Dean rolled his eyes at her. "Hold the gloating for a minute," he said. He stepped back across the flames and dragged a metal folding chair into the oval.

Working in silence, they shifted Castiel off the concrete and into the folding chair, where they rearranged the chains to lock the angel's arms around the back of the chair. The demon cleared his throat and edged back, leaving Faith near the angel. "Ladies first, Slayer. Go on and knock yourself out."

Faith knew that she had to move quickly. Someone would be coming for Castiel, and she had no interest in still being here when whatever that someone or something was arrived. She allowed her angel blade to slide out of her sleeve and into her hand. Raising the blade, the Slayer tapped the tip of the blade once on either side of Castiel's chin, and then she lowered it to scratch the skin above his right wrist.

With a grunt of pain, the angel's eyes snapped open. He said nothing, merely stared up at her with his cold blue gaze and waited for her to speak.

The Slayer had never been big on patience. She lasted maybe thirty seconds before opening her mouth and saying in an overly friendly voice, "I need you to do something for me, Castiel."

"What do you want?" growled the angel, and his gaze flicked sideways to where Dean stood. The demon's expression was shadowed by the flames behind him.

She pressed the blade more firmly against his wrist and leaned down over Castiel. "Focus, Cass. Eyes up here."

With her free hand, Faith tugged at the hem of her shirt to reveal the bandaging over her right hip, already half soaked through with blood. She stepped forward, grabbed the angel's hand, and forced him to touch the blood-stained bandage. "Two things, actually, Twinkle Toes. I need you to fix _this_ ," she dipped her chin down towards her wound, "and I need you to tell me how to find that piece of sh-t Metatron. I've got a bone or two to pick with him - excuse me, did I say _with_ him?" She leaned in even closer. "I misspoke. I've got a bone or two to pick _out_ of him."

"Metatron?" The angel tilted his head to one side and looked at her strangely. "You . . . you think you can defeat Metatron?"

" _We_ can defeat Metatron." Faith nodded in Dean's direction. "He's kind of indestructible these days. And me? I get a little bitchy when I'm pissed off."

"She ain't kidding," commented Dean.

"But that can wait. All that - it can wait. First, I need you to fix me."

Castiel glanced from the Slayer to the demon and back again. Then he spread his fingers wide open, until they spanned the length of her bandaged side. His blue eyes flashed a brilliant, glaring white, and Faith lifted her arm to shield her face.

When she lowered her arm, the angel's eyes were crystal blue once again, almost regretful as he looked up at her.

"What?" snapped Faith. She knew already that he had failed. If anything her hip ached even more than it had prior to the healing attempt.

"There is no utility in healing this," said Castiel solemnly. "It will not help you."

"Come again?"

"Healing this wound will not be enough. How much do you know about how Sam called you back from the Veil?"

Faith's throat went dry. "Not much," she admitted resentfully. "I was kinda stuck in the Veil at the time. Crowley said . . . Crowley said that he couldn't stop whatever it is that's happening to me. I hoped maybe you could." It was the most sincere she had been with anyone apart from the Mayor since Dean Winchester had died.

"When I attempted to heal you, I saw that the ritual that was used bound your soul to a newly crafted form of your body."

"Okay . . ."

"And now both that binding and the new body are unraveling. There is not much space for deterioration left before they will have unraveled completely."

"How long?"

"What?"

"How long?" repeated the Slayer grimly, and she shoved the point of her angel blade against the curve of Castiel's throat. "How long until it ends?"

"When did the bleeding start?" the angel asked, unfazed by the threat of violence.

"Last night. Maybe twelve or fourteen hours ago."

"From the state of the binding, I would hazard that you perhaps have that much time remaining. Perhaps a little more, but not far beyond that."

"Oh," said Faith.

In that moment, suddenly everything was clear. She had one day to live, less than twenty-four hours before this spell-shackled shell of a body crumbled into nothing, and she was once again merely a collection of pained, wistful memories. Faith reflected on a dream that she had had that morning in the car, a twisted version of one of her many nights in England.

"What do you hear, Faith?" That had been Angel, jogging next to her in the rain-soaked streets of Northwest London. There had been an emergency in Magic Town (three deaths, two explosions), and now they were late for dinner with Fred and her parents.

Faith looked up at the dark, cloudy sky. "Nothin' but the rain," she answered him.

"Then grab your gun." It was Giles on her left, rain trickling down the familiar glasses, his voice low and calm in that uniquely Watcherly way of his.

"And bring in the cat," finished Wesley with a grim smile as he took Giles's place. He ran beside her to the end of the block, but there Wes and Angel both vanished, leaving Faith to run on into the night by herself.

"Faith." Dean's gruff grumble dragged her back to the present and the ring of holy fire surrounding them. The demon crossed his arms casually over his chest in a perfect display of unconcern. He nodded towards the captive Castiel. "You gonna stand there and daydream all day? Or are you gonna get to work?"

The Slayer flirted briefly with the idea of just saying "kill him," but she shoved it down. On the cold day if - when - Dean ever stopped being a demon, the memory of murdering his best angel friend would destroy him. Instead, she relieved some of her own frustration and despair by striking Castiel hard, across the face. The silver ring on her thumb cut his lip, and a trickle of scarlet blood seeped out.

"He's not worth using the Blade on," she said dismissively before leaning in and taking the angel's face in her hands. Her fingernails dug deep into the soft tissue on either side of his eye sockets. "Metatron's ass is mine. So tell me, Feathers, where's the gate to Heaven?"

"Even if I could tell you," said Castiel impassively, his gaze never straying from the demon to so much as glance at her, "the Vanguard would destroy you before you make it within a hundred yards."

"Weren't you listening to yourself a moment ago?" snarled Faith. "I'm a dead girl walking, angel-cakes. Your vanguard doesn't scare me."

_We've barely gotten started on the five basic torture groups_ , the voice of her younger self rang in her ears. _Blunt, sharp, hot, cold, and loud._ But Castiel was not Wesley, and she would not be letting him pick.

"Dean, please," the angel was attempting to plead with the man that he had raised from Perdition. "Concerns of morality aside, you must listen to reason - or at least think of survival. They will obliterate you." In spite of everything that had happened, everything that the Slayer and demon were threatening to do to him, he would still do anything to save Dean Winchester.

The demon in question merely shrugged. "Zombie Slayer here calls the shots. I'm just the muscle." It was more than a little bit of a lie, but Faith appreciated it regardless.

"She'll die."

"She's dying anyway."

"I could help her."

"You can't even help yourself."

"I'm right here, you know," Faith pointed out, turning away from the angel long enough to scowl at Dean. "What?" she snapped when the demon's black eyes flashed momentarily to green as he stared at her.

The demon moved forward to brush the pads of two fingers against the left side of her throat. When he pulled back, his fingertips were dark with blood.

"What?" The Slayer touched her own neck and winced as she encountered the two jagged holes. Damn Angelus and his damn fascination with biting every Slayer he tangled with.

"Ah," exhaled Castiel in self-satisfaction. "I was right. She doesn't have much time left, Dean."

Whirling to the left, Dean backhanded the angel with the hilt of the First Blade, knocking him unconscious in one smooth movement. He wiped his bloody fingers against the leg of his jeans.

"What was that for?" Faith demanded.

"He's not wrong," said the demon quietly. "You are running out of time."

"So we just quit? What happened to taking down Metatron? What happened to me being the boss?"

Dean shook his head. "Sweetheart, if it ain't going to work, it ain't worth doing. Come on." He gripped her arm and began tugging her out of the warehouse.

The Slayer did not put up a fight, not even when he shoved her through the ring of holy fire. She beat out the flames on her jacket and her jeans before they could do more than singe the fabric. Tearing a strip of cotton from the hem of her t-shirt, she pressed it against the vampire bite on her neck. "So that's it?" she wondered hysterically, speaking more to herself than to him. "G-d, this is all so frakking futile. Life - death - all of it. I wanted it to be something. I wanted it to _mean_ something."

"It never does," the demon interrupted her soliloquy when they reached the car. "Get in. We'd better hurry. Something tells me that not even Castiel was dumb enough not to call the cavalry when he realized you'd be dropping by for a little sit'n'chat."

Regarding him suspiciously, the woman said, "I'm dying. An' you're taking me along why?"

Dean stared at the horizon. He thought he could see a swirl of dust where the highway blended into the sky. "In," he urged her, opening the front passenger door and nearly shoving her inside.

"Dean - "

"You're my bargaining chip, okay? If whoever that is catches up with us too soon." He jerked his head towards the dust cloud, spinning the Chevy out in a one-eighty and pulling onto the highway with a screech of tires.

"Sh-t," said Faith. "Crowley's crew?"

"Maybe. Or your Slayer pals. Or Sam. Or the angels."

The woman exhaled. "Wow. We really are popular these days, aren't we?"

Dean floored the accelerator. "Grab that gun that's lying in the backseat," he told her. "We're gonna need it."

The Slayer unbuckled her seat belt long enough to twist over the back of the black leather bench seat and fish a small semi-automatic submachine gun out of the floorboard, not giving him the satisfaction of asking why he was packing that kind of firepower. She dropped back into her seat, one hand wrapped around the stock of the gun, the other hand still holding the scrap of fabric to her neck. "I'm not going to shoot Slayers," she warned him. "Or your brother."

"But you'll shoot angels?" he clarified.

"Angels and demons, baby. Always fair game."

"How's the neck? Pain gonna wreck your aim?"

"It's fine," said Faith tersely. "The pain isn't the worst part of a vampire bite, anyway."

The demon chuckled. "No, I'd imagine that would be the vampire."

Faith smiled grimly. "You'd be right."

* * *

**June 12th, 2016, Coalmont, Colorado, 1:53 p.m.**

Castiel opened his eyes to a familiar pair of workboots. "Sam?" he croaked, his skull still ringing from that last blow from the First Blade.

"You okay, Cass?" The hunter lifted Castiel up to his feet. The holy oil had finally burned itself out into a few still-smoking patches, but Faith and Dean had been inconsiderate and had left the manacles in place. The angel was forced to hobble sideways out of the warehouse and up to the ancient tan Ford pick-up that Sam was driving. The hunter lifted an axe of the truck bed.

"Hold still," he warned the angel, and he broke the chair into fragments with four quick, sharp blows. Hands still chained behind his back, Castiel was nonetheless able to clamber up into the front seat of the truck with a little assistance from the hunter.

Sam confirmed a final time, "You okay?" and then he fired up the Ford, and pulled out on the highway after the three cars that had already passed while he was rescuing the angel. His cellphone began to ring in the glovebox, and the man turned to it with widened eyes. "I forgot about that," he mumbled, answering the call. "Hello?"

"Where in the world is Sam Winchester?" sing-songed Lily far too loudly into his ear. "I thought you were right behind us."

"Yeah. I stopped to grab Cass - like Buffy told me, remember? I'm maybe five minutes back. But don't worry, I'll catch up soon enough."

"With Spike driving? I'm not too sure of that."

"Lily, who do you think taught me how to drive a car?"

After considering the most likely candidate - and that candidate's penchant for driving like an Indy 500 racer out to sabotage the competition - the Slayer changed her mind, "Right. We'll see you in a bit then. Hey, you wouldn't happen to know an ex-military looking guy in a souped-up black Jeep, would you?"

"Sh-t," exhaled Sam. "That's Cole. He thinks Dean killed his father when he was a kid."

"Did he?" the blonde asked with a reasonable amount of skepticism.

"I'm not sure. Chances are he's got the wrong guy or if he's right and it was Dean, his dad must've been a monster."

"Ri-ight. Anyway, he's trying to play car chase with us, and Spike just wanted me to clarify that it wasn't a case of friendly fire before he side-swiped him."

"Aren't you driving Becka's car?" said Sam incredulously.

"Yeah. If he does actually side-swipe the Jeep, she's gonna need a sedative. Holy sh-t!" Her voice rose an octave and a half.

"What? Are you okay?"

Returning to a more normal pitch, the Slayer said, "Barely. Some idiot sedan just pulled out in front of us."

In the seat beside Sam, Castiel closed his eyes, his forehead scrunching into a series of wrinkles as he frowned. "I think . . . tell her . . . those are angels. I can hear them," he explained. "They seem to have finally decided that the newest Knight of Hell is an abomination which must be put down."

"Stellar timing," grumbled Sam, but he passed the information along to Lily anyway.

When he finished, she said, "Yeah, I figured they weren't friends of Dean's when Faith started firing on them."

"What?"

"You guys usually keep an Uzi in the Chevy? 'Cause Faith just leaned her head out the window and tried to plug the sedan's tires with lead."

"Don't get hurt," Sam cautioned her. "Tell Spike to be careful."

Lily snorted. "Like hell I will. He's already got Buffy and Angel and Becka all yammering at him. I'm just sitting here in the backseat watching Mr. Angry Jeep. Drive a little faster, Sam? We kinda need you here."

"We'll be there as fast as we can," the hunter promised.

Something crashed ominously on the other end of the line.

"Yeah," said Lily, her voice emerging from a muffled din of multiple people swearing, "you may want to make it faster."

* * *

**June 12th, 2016, Coalmont, Colorado, 2:03 p.m.**

They made it twenty miles down the highway from the warehouse when the Slayer's left arm caught on fire, and she was forced to pull her torso back through the window into the front seat of the Chevy.

"The frak?" gasped Dean as the woman dropped the submachine pistol into the floorboard and reached into the backseat for his jacket. She used the abandoned coat to beat out the flames on her arm, beads of sweat glistening on her forehead.

"Ifrit. Two thousand and five." Faith was almost starting to enjoy this, in a horribly destructive and masochistic way. "If I remember right, my legs should start burning, soon, too - that lab explosion back in New Jersey with the homicidal graduate student."

"And that doesn't hurt?"

"Of course it hurts. Everything hurts," the Slayer muttered. "I'm just used to it."

"Whatever. Just put your legs out when the flame starts, okay, Rambo?"

"Why?" snarked the Slayer. "Because it freaks you out, and G-d help us if you lose your manly mystique?"

"No," Dean corrected her dryly. "Because if you catch the car on fire . . . "

"Oh. Right." Faith gritted her teeth. "We passed a sign a mile or two back - there's another ghost town about three miles on from here. Maybe we better pull over?"

"And have your girlfriends catch us?" the demon countered.

"You got any better ideas?" demanded Faith.

He really didn't. "We'll see how things are when we get to the next exit."

By the time they reached the next set of signs to leave the highway, Faith's legs had indeed caught fire. She smothered the flames with little more than a grimace and then leaned back against the rolled-up window.

"What comes next?" asked Dean, his gas pedal pressed down to the floor.

"I'm not sure. Ah!" There came a snapping sound, and the Slayer bent in half with pain. "Oh, G-d. How could I forget?" she half-whispered to herself. "That was the leg. When Angel stomped on it and broke the damn thing."

"All right, then." He twisted the steering wheel to the side and took the exit ramp off of the highway.

"Why don't you keep driving?" mumbled Faith, crumpling in on herself.

The demon braced his knee against the car door as he hurtled around the curves of the exit ramp. "You're on your way out, Zombie Girl, and I don't want you haunting my car," he informed her. "I like being able to pick my own radio station, thanks."

Faith pushed herself back into an upright position. "Where are you taking me?"

"Looks like there's something not too far up along the road here."

"Mmm." She slumped against the window again, her lips a tight thin line across her teeth, her face drawn.

Dean sped along the cracked and cratered access road towards the structure up ahead. As they drew closer, he realized that it was nothing more or less than an abandoned gas station. In a distant corner of his mind, he reflected how ironically symmetric this whole situation was. He had found water and a car in a gas station when he had been resurrected the first time. And now, it was looking like the Slayer would be dying in one.

The demon whipped around the corner of the gravel parking lot to slam to a halt behind the building made of whitewashed cinderblocks. He had put a decent distance between himself and his pursuers before leaving the highway. Hopefully, it would take them a good few minutes to catch up. Dean glanced across the front to the Slayer. She couldn't leave, not without his help, anyway. The demon realized to his mild surprise that he didn't want her to.

"Easy does it." He walked over to her side of the car and helped her out. The Slayer's skin was milk white, corpse-white, except for the scalding red burns on her arms and legs. Her shin was bent at a funny angle, and blood was dripping down from the bottom hem of her jeans onto the dry gravel.

Dean took one look at the Slayer's stoic expression and rolled his eyes. "Stop being such a damn martyr."

Without bothering to explain himself, he lifted her up into his arms and carried her into the abandoned gas station, kicking in the locked back door as they went. He deposited her on the one piece of suitable furniture in the place, the wrecked jump seat of some SUV, and tugged his Colt revolver out from the inside pocket of his jacket. The demon pressed the pistol into her hands. "You good?"

"Five by five," grunted Faith.

"Good." He patted her on the non-burnt shoulder and headed back outside for his arsenal. After bringing in their two duffel bags full of rifles, grenades, and handguns, Dean barricaded the front and back doors with the rusting shelving units and checked the line of sight from each window before returning to the jump seat and plopping onto the upholstery beside Faith. Careful not to jar her broken leg too much, he pulled her into him, and her head lolled limply against his shoulder.

"You sure you're not ready to tap out yet?" he asked her.

"And miss this party?" Faith attempted to straighten up but subsided when Dean relentlessly dragged her back down.

"We've got a few minutes," said the demon. "Looks like they're all fighting it out at the bottom of the exit ramp. You can see the smoke from here."

"They'll quit fighting soon enough and head this way." Not for the first time, she wondered, "Why are you still here?"

"They can't hurt me," Dean reminded her, "and I want to see how this plays out. Forget cowboys and Indians. We've got Slayers versus angels versus Sam versus vigilantes out there."

"No demons?"

"Only me." Except for whatever shadow Crowley had following them around today. Dean would have been willing to bet the Chevy that the King of Hell had either eyes or ears on them.

The Slayer coughed. "You don't count."

"I'm a Knight of Hell. Kinda do count."

Lifting her head from his shoulder, Faith looked up at him with slightly unfocused eyes. "Yeah, but you're on my side, aren't you? No other explanation for why you're still putzing around here that makes sense. And even then, it's only a kind of sense." Her head dropped back against the jump seat.

"Faith."

She did not open her eyes. "Mmm?"

"You're rambling."

The ghost of a smile blossomed at the corners of her mouth. "I'm dying."

"You want me to leave? 'Cause I can."

"No." The Slayer gestured feebly with the revolver. "'Cause if you leave, then they'll find me. I can't run - can't even hobble. And if . . . if they find me, they won't let me die."

"I could kill you now," Dean offered.

"Not . . . ready."

The demon scoffed, "You ever gonna be ready? We both know how this ends - you choking on your own g-ddamned spit."

Pointing the barrel of the Colt at his kneecap, Faith complained, "Can you be quiet for a minute? Or . . . " she turned to him, half-pleading. "Can we just pretend?"

"Like what?" said Dean light-heartedly, pushing the muzzle of the Colt back towards the ground. If pretending was what she wanted, then pretending he would give her. "Shoot-out at the OK Corral? The Battle of Alcatraz? Bonnie and Clyde? Thelma and Louise?"

Faith grinned weakly. "You'd make a good Louise."

"There's the zombie I know." He unloaded and reloaded the Colt and then placed it back into her blood-stained hands. Already, her skin felt far too cool against his. "Here." Dean reached into his duffel for a bottle of Jack Daniels. Unscrewing the cap, he held it up to her lips. "Drink."

Faith drank.

Afterwards, the demon leaned her against the back of the rumble seat and stepped back to his post by the windows. There were four vehicles on the edges of the old gravel lot: a no-nonsense sedan now riddled with bullet holes, a black paramilitary Jeep, Becka's CRV, and an old pickup truck with two familiar silhouettes in the front seat. They were parked in a semi-circle around the gas station. Dean grimaced. He had hoped they would thin each others' ranks a bit more. At least he had had the foresight to take the Impala around to the back.

His hand accidentally brushing against the phone in his pocket, Dean remembered that he, at least, still had a way out of this mess. Crowley was only a call away. The King of Hell could be here in an instant and take both of them far out of Colorado. And yet, despite his reluctance to tangle with his little brother and the cadre of Slayers on his doorstep, Dean felt the need to stay put for a little while longer. He had to see this through to the end - to her end.

Returning to the rumble seat, he seated himself once again and dragged the Slayer's head down into his lap. The demon ran a hand through her hair, tangled and dusty as it was from leaning out the Chevy's window to fire at the angels earlier.

"Who do you want to win?" Dean asked her gently, wondering why she was still clinging to every moment, fighting the inevitable end every last inch of the way.

"Don't care," muttered Faith, her face pressed into the leg of his jeans. "I just don't want my girls to lose."

"Mmm." He continued to stroke her hair, easy and relaxed and slow, as if there weren't a pack of self-righteous wolves outside the cinderblock walls of the gas station, just waiting for the first chance to blow the doors down and storm in, guns and hypocrisy blazing.

The Slayer let out a staggering breath, and some of the tension seeped out of her body. With some effort, she twisted over onto her back and looked up into his cold green eyes. "Dean?"

He glanced down at her. "Hmm?"

"Please," was all she said.

It was all he needed to hear.

"Shut your eyes."

Her eyelids fluttered closed. Dean took a moment to survey the face that he knew almost as well as he knew his own, the wrinkles in the corners of her eyes, her lips pursed against the pain of her burns and broken leg, her scarlet lipstick somehow still perfect in spite of everything. The demon's thumbs skated over the edges of Faith's cheekbones, and then he clasped her face in both hands and wrenched.

_Snap_ went the Slayer's neck, and his Colt fell from her suddenly limp grip.

Dean caught the gun before it could hit the concrete. Extricating himself from beneath the dead woman, he dug around in his bag for the final, necessary supplies. A can of salt in one hand, a bottle of lighter fluid in the other, the demon stared down at the corpse. In death, she looked almost peaceful and far too still. Faith Lehane had never been one for stillness, not even in her sleep.

Moving with sharp, precise efficiency, the demon first doused her in lighter fluid. Next, Dean upended half of the can of salt onto her chest. Finally, he yanked the turquoise cross off of her neck, snapping in the silver chain in the process.

He tucked the necklace into his front jeans pocket, reflecting that it wasn't that he was attached - he just didn't trust anyone else not to drag her back to life. And even a heartless son of a bitch like him knew that Faith Lehane deserved better than that.

The demon ducked out the back towards the Impala. Once he was clear of the building, he hurled two grenades into the gas station in quick succession. Then Dean threw himself behind the wheel of the Chevy and took off like a bat out of Hell, while the last of his ties to humanity burned up in the flames behind him.

* * *

 


	14. Bring It on Home

* * *

**August 12th, 2016, Coalmont, Colorado, 4:30 p.m.**

By the time that the flames died down enough to see inside the twisted wreckage of the gas station, three of the four onlooking vehicles had split. The military grade jeep and the bullet-ridden sedan had instantly taken off after the Impala, and Spike had been right on their heels. Only Sam had stayed. Castiel had told him plenty on their drive from the abandoned warehouse, and the hunter doubted that Faith Lehane had made it out of his brother's conflagration alive.

When the fire finally dwindled to an angry, smoldering heap, he stepped through the now-empty front door frame, shattered glass crunching beneath his boots. Sam pushed and shoved warped shelving out of his way as he struggled towards what looked like it might once have been the back seat of an SUV. He looked down on the fire-blackened corpse lying across the car seat, its burnt features unrecognizable.

"The Slayer's time ran out," said an emotionless voice from behind him.

Sam flinched violently. G-d, he would have thought that six years of hanging around his brother would have broken Castiel of his unpleasant little habit of sneaking up on people. Apparently not. "You sure that's her?"

The angel squinted at the charred body. "Those are the clothes she was wearing when they – "

"Abducted you?" The hunter cut in, the words pitched up half an octave in mild hysteria.

"Yes," said Castiel with a frown. "I am sorry she ended this way."

_Sorry?_ Sam choked. Sorry did not even begin to cover it. And when Dean found out – the hunter winced at the automatic thought. Like as not, Dean had been the one who did this. "Can you tell how she died?" he asked the angel.

Castiel shook his head. "I'm an angel, not a medical examiner," he pointed out mildly. "And Sam, before you ask, I cannot reverse this."

"Yeah, I kinda figured that, thanks." The man exhaled through his teeth. "Cass, can you do me a favor?"

"Yes?"

"Would you grab my bag out of the truck? Dean would kill me if he found out I didn't take care of this right."

Although he raised his eyebrows at the expression, the angel said nothing. Instead, he quietly began picking his way back across the still-smoking floor.

Once he was alone, the hunter crouched down, bringing his face on a level with Faith's body. He placed one hand on the far too-warm blackened skin of her shoulder, which crackled and crumbled under his light touch.

"I screwed up, Faith," whispered Sam, knowing that no apology would ever be enough to make up for what he had allowed to happen to her. He waited in silence beside the dead woman until Castiel returned with a large black duffel. The hunter fiddled around in its insides in search of a canister of rock salt and a bottle of lighter fluid. Then he liberally sprinkled rock salt and lighter fluid over the corpse before lighting a fistful of matches and watching the Slayer burn for a second time.

For a while, Castiel sat vigil with him, but eventually the angel wandered back outside to do whatever it was that he did when he was on his own. To his shame, Sam felt a sharp sense of relief at Cass's departure. He could hardly breathe for the guilt that was choking him, clawing its way from belly to throat, and the angel's presence only worsened things.

Finally, when the Slayer's body had burned itself nearly down to ashes, Sam heard the groan of a car engine approaching. Rising to his feet, he tugged the revolver out of the waistband of his jeans and moved towards the exit.

As he cleared the broken fragments of glass around the front door, he was hit around the waist by a furious five feet, eight inches of blonde Slayer, knocking his pistol to the ground.

"This is all your frakking fault!" Lily was crying, her face scrunched up in sheer fury. Becka's SUV was once again parked beside Sam's pick-up, and the dark silhouettes of the two vampires were visible through the dark tinted glass of the front seat. "You killed her!"

Sam knew better than to point out that either the fire or his brother had killed her. As he attempted to block the flurry of blows that Lily was unleashing on him, her fist slammed into his shoulder with enough force to dislodge it from its socket and Becka darted past them into the burned-out building. He could hear the scraping of metal against concrete as the brunette rifled through the rubble to better access the older Slayer's charred remains. At last, the scraping stopped, and a single, horrified word trembled back to them.

"Faith?"

Sighing, Buffy stepped away from her position near the hood of the SUV, her arms crossed over her stomach. Ignoring Castiel, who was staring with narrowed eyes at the silent vampires, she first tugged Becka out of the gas station and then pulled Lily off of Sam. "Girls." Her tone was kind but firm and left no room for argument. "Get in the car."

Sam rediscovered his voice, gritting his teeth against the pain of a dislocated shoulder. "What happened? Did you lose him?"

With a toss of her blonde hair, Buffy turned back to the hunter. Lips pursed, she helped him to pop his shoulder back into place. "Look, I don't even want to get started on all the things that went wrong here," Buffy grimaced. "You shouldn't have acted on your own when your brother vanished. You should have called us. We may be Vampire Slayers, but we are very good at handling demons, demi-gods, gods, all of it. You should have called. We could have helped. Maybe then we wouldn't be standing here. Did Faith . . ." she paused. "Did Faith volunteer for this?"

Cradling his still-aching arm, Sam said, "No," so softly that the blonde barely heard him.

"Well. To answer your earlier question, yes, we lost Dean – for the moment. I only came back because the girls called Castiel and he said something about a body. They wanted to see her, but now we're headed back out to pick up the trail. You know what this means, don't you? We can't stop until we bring Dean in – and as for what state he's in when that happens, I don't really care."

"Buffy – "

She cut him off. "I'm sorry, Sam. I really am. But that's where we are right now. I need to take care of my people. Can you look after the body? Do whatever it is that you hunters do and then take care of the ashes?"

"What do you want me to do with them?" he asked.

"Bury them. Scatter them into the ocean. Do what you need to." The blonde gestured in frustration. "Just know that we will do what's necessary where your brother is concerned. There – there are consequences for killing a Slayer."

"I know," said Sam, his mind racing. Hesitantly, he voiced the thing that had been rolling around in his mind for the past few weeks. "I think . . . I think I may have a way to save Dean. There is a ritual that will cure a demon."

Buffy re-crossed her arms across her chest in a display of skepticism. "And has this ritual ever worked?"

"Once. Almost," the hunter added as a caveat, and he tried to scrub the mental image of an overly-emotional Crowley out of his mind.

The Slayer raised her eyebrows, but said only, "It's a slim shot."

"It's all we have. Please," importuned Sam.

"Okay," said Buffy. She could give him this, at least. "When we trap him, we'll let you try the ritual. And if it doesn't work, we'll handle things our way," she finished, a hair more harsh than she had intended.

Unable to resist one last push, the hunter reminded her, "Faith would never give up on him. You know that as well as I do."

"Faith's gone," remarked the Slayer coldly. "You Winchesters aren't dealing with her anymore. You're dealing with me. And I don't plan on being quite as lenient as she was. Your brother was her Achilles heel, and you got her killed. Goodbye, Sam."

With that parting shot, she climbed into the SUV and left.

Sam turned to Castiel, who was still silent, standing sentinel as the car and the vampires disappeared onto the highway. "What is it, Cass?" snapped Sam, uncomfortably aware of how close he was to the end of his rope.

"I was just thinking," mused the angel. "How for all their self-proclaimed righteousness, the Slayers are as prone to evil allies and . . . murky morality as the rest of humankind."

"They are human," Sam pointed out.

"For the most part," agreed Cass.

"Right." The hunter rubbed at his temples. He could feel a headache coming on, and his shoulder still hurt like the devil from where Lily had dislocated it. He stepped away from his pick-up and walked towards the gas station one final time. He had ashes to burn and to bury. "Come on, Cass," he said with an air of resignation. "Let's get to it."

* * *

**July 12th, 2016, Denver, Colorado, 6:45 p.m.**

Buffy waited until they were twenty minutes out from Denver before she allowed the other shoe to drop. "You're going home," she told the girls bluntly.

"What?!" Lily rocked back in her seat, her eyes growing wide with shock.

"Buffy," started Becka pleadingly, "you can't –"

Appealing to a higher authority, the blonde Slayer reached into shotgun and prodded the vampire sitting there on the shoulder. "Angel, make her listen!"

"Spike!" hissed Becka when it became clear that Angel was staying out of this one. "A little help, here?"

But the vampire shook his head. "She's right."

"You have _got_ to be kidding me," grumbled Lily. It was taking all of her will-power to keep from bursting into tears.

"I'm not," said Buffy flatly. "You girls have already spent, what, two weeks on this? You need to go back to your lives."

"Not yet," Becka insisted, "We have to – "

Lily joined her in protesting, "Faith – "

"Faith is dead." The words were tense, clipped, harsh. "We can't do anything about that. She bent over backwards to give you what the rest of us never got. You honor her by using that."

"Buffy – " begged Lily, some of her anger fading to reveal the cracking emotion beneath. "Buffy, please – "

"You need to go home, girls," the head Slayer repeated herself. "We're putting you on the next flight out to Ohio, and we'll ship the car."

"But Dean – " Becka protested feebly.

"Don't you worry about Dean," said Buffy darkly. We'll find him, and we'll take care of it."

"Don't kill him," half-whispered Lily, her voice wavering.

"Please," echoed Becka.

"All that destruction, and you still want to protect him?" wondered Angel, speaking for the first time. He generally did his best to stay out of Slayer-on-Slayer conflict these days. It never ended well for any fang that got between them.

"No, not protect," the brunette clarified. "Just not destroy."

Buffy shook her head. "Girls," she said, "I'll do what needs to be done."

And really, there was nothing they could ask for beyond that. Oh, they knew that they could ask, but there was no promise of an answer, no promise of any better.

"This sucks," Becka hissed in her best friend's ear, leaning back against the leather upholstery until their shoulders knocked into each other.

"Yeah," said Lily as the first of many tears began crawling down her cheek. "It really frakking does."

* * *

**July 12th, 2016, Flagstaff, Arizona, 11:27 p.m.**

Dean was unsurprised when Crowley found him in a grungy dive on the fringes of Flagstaff later that night. The black-eyed demon was slowly nursing his way through a fifth of whiskey. It was that kind of evening – and there was no girl in the place who was anything above a four. If Dean wanted to get lucky, he was going to have to get blind drunk first.

The King of Hell opened with, "So your little girlfriend – "

Snorting softly, Dean took another sip of his drink before replying, "Dead."

"A pity." Crowley nodded at the bartender and ordered one of the fruity cocktails he always seemed to enjoy, musing aloud, "I liked her."

"Sure, you did," said the other demon sardonically. "Come on, Crowley. Don't bother lying. You and me both know that you hate to share."

Crowley shrugged as if to say 'True,' then added, "Doesn't mean that I didn't like her."

"Doesn't matter now, does it? She's dead, and I'm hungry." He glanced up at the grizzled man behind the bar. "I'll take the nachos. Biggest plate of 'em you got."

* * *

**August 3rd, 2016, Beulah, North Dakota, 5:25 p.m.**

Three weeks. It took Dean three weeks of nonstop boozing and bromancing to admit the uncomfortable truth, which was that he almost missed the Slayer. She had provided the occasional buffer to Crowley's more . . . annoying moments, and she had been an entertaining outlet who snarked back as good as she got and who had always been as interested in a little casual violence as he was. She just liked to choose the targets of her violence more particularly. The demon didn't regret his choices – not one bit – but sometimes, when he transferred her necklace from pocket to pocket until he gave into a whim of sentiment and hung the damn thing from the rearview mirror, he wondered.

"Interesting trophy," said Crowley after watching the silver chain sway back and forth with the smooth prowl of the Chevy, recognizing the cross without seeming to recognize its significance.

"Sure," Dean shrugged, and then he slammed the car door shut and left to find a buxom blonde to screw his brains out.

Without the Slayer, the urgency of finding an escape route from Crowley died down a fraction. He could leave whenever he wanted to – he just didn't care enough to bother.

Unfortunately, the King of Hell did not appear quite as willing to let the wind take them wherever it wanted. He began pushing, at first subtly, but soon becoming more and more overt. He wanted Dean to _do_ things – and not the fun kind of things, either. He wanted to use him as an enforcer, to persuade him into taking an active role in the endless bureaucracy of Hell. And Dean? He had no interest in playing along.

Crowley kept pushing, and Dean kept resisting, and when push came to shove, Dean both pushed and shoved, leaving Crowley sprawled out on his backside on the rough wooden floor of yet another nameless bar, two of his be-suited flying monkeys snickering while they watched.

The King of Hell had had some choice words for him before they parted, something about emotional ties and letting go, and choosing a damn side. Sliding behind the wheel of the Impala, Dean caught a glimpse of the dangling cross out of the corner of his eye.

Pity that she had had to die, he thought aimlessly, backing the car into a 180-spinout in the gravel parking lot. Given the choice between Sammy, Crowley, and the Slayer, picking a side would have been an easy decision. One of those three sides was often the same as his – and it sure as hell wasn't his brother's or the demon's.

Oh, well. Now he had no limits, no ties, no sides. Now, he was free.

* * *

**August 5th, 2016, Portage, Wisconsin, 10:47 a.m.**

Sam stared at the cell phone that the local LEOs had taken off of the dead meatsuit of the demon who had attempted to corner his brother in a gas station. His shoulder twinged as he scrolled through the call log. Despite three weeks and an excellent sling, he had yet to recover from Lily's forceful dislocation of his shoulder. One of the numbers on the log had called the phone three times yesterday morning, with the last call coming in twenty minutes before the demon had burst into the gas station.

The hunter wrinkled his nose. Something about this situation stank. Frowning, he narrowed his eyes at the call log. Then, reaching a decision, he tapped the unknown number on the screen, wondering if his hunch might be right.

The phone rang three times, and then a polished English voice drawled, "Sampson."

"Crowley?" No point in asking how the demon knew it was him.

"Good God, Winchester, no need to sound so shocked."

Sam dispensed with the small talk. "Does Dean know you've been putting out hits on him?"

Crowley scoffed. "That was the farthest thing from a hit. Unless we're talking illicit substances . . . the Mark of Cain engenders blood lust, you bumbling idiot."

"How did you know it was me?"

"You really think I don't know each and every one of your phone numbers? Anyway, I've been looking for you – this makes things more convenient."

"Why?" demanded the hunter suspiciously.

The King of Hell cleared his throat. "I have a slight . . . issue, and I was wondering if you would take it off my hands for me."

"I'm listening."

"Your dearly beloved brother – well, it turns out he isn't quite as tractable without his pet Slayer as I thought he might be," said the demon with an air of melodrama. "He is becoming rather more trouble than he is worth."

Sam's heart was racing. On the one hand, this could be a trap. On the other hand, if Crowley was about to turn on Dean, that might be the opening that he and the Slayers had been waiting for. "So?"

"So," continued the demon, "I had thought that perhaps you might be interested in helping me to power down darling old Dean-o. Whatddya say, Bullwinkle? Are you ready to get your Rocky back?"

"You'd really help me?" wondered Sam skeptically.

"Of course," Crowley assured him. "I just require one small thing in exchange."

* * *

**August 7th, 2016, Williston, North Dakota, 3:12 p.m.**

When the door to the bar creaked open, Dean glanced up from the piano keys. He didn't know how to play – not really – but he had spent more than one night with girls who did. He kept his face impassive as four people stepped into the room, two of whom kept their faces hidden beneath heavy hoods that they pushed back as they walked out of the bright sunlit afternoon in to the dim electric light of the bar.

"Hiya, Sam," purred the demon conversationally. "Had a feeling you might be coming. Gotta say, I wasn't expecting the whole posse." He nodded to the navy sling encasing his brother's left arm. "Who winged you?"

The hunter winced. Dean's mocking, no matter how good-natured, always made him feel like he was a clumsy six-year-old – and this was far from good-natured. "Lily."

"Good for her." The demon rose from the piano bench, his body language still loose and relaxed. "I told you not to follow me, Sam," he reminded his brother. "Much less for you to bring your little dead friends along."

Sam took a step forward, conscious of the incredibly pissed-off looks on the vampires' faces. Apparently, they liked Dean's newfound sense of humor even less than Sam did. "You know I can't do that, Dean. By the way, your, uh, pal Crowley . . . He sold you out."

"Sounds like him." The demon was only mildly irritated that Crowley had beat him to the betrayal punch. He leaned back against the side of the upright piano and surveyed his audience. Buffy, her expression characteristically pissed; the stoic brunette vampire; the sarcastic blond; and, as always, his pseudo-sincere little brother. "So . . . which of you wants to go first?"

Moving again, Sam kept interposing himself between Dean and the others. "Hold on a second," he attempted to reason with his brother. "You don't have to do this. Look, we know how to cure demons. You remember that?"

Dean snorted. "Little Latin, lot of blood. It rings a bell." He strode past his brother, past the vampires with their poorly concealed swords, past Little Miss Stick-Up-Her-Ass to the bar. Stepping behind the wooden counter, the demon poured himself a double of bourbon and tossed it back. "In all that research you did, you ever stop to think that if I wanted to be cured, I wouldn't have bailed?"

"That was Crowley," said Sam, although he didn't sound sure.

Dean smiled coldly. "It really wasn't."

Opening her mouth to say something, Buffy paused. Something warned her away from interrupting this discussion between the brothers.

The younger Winchester would not be deterred. "It doesn't matter, all right? 'Cause whatever went down, whatever happened, we will fix it."

"Like you fixed Faith?" laughed the demon, and he poured himself more bourbon. "'Cause here's the thing: right now, I'm doing all I can not to come over there and rip your throat out . . . with my teeth." Dean took a sip of amber liquid, feeling the burn all the way down into his stomach. "I'm giving you a chance, boys and girl. You should all take it."

Finally finding her voice, the Slayer said, "Afraid I'm going to have to pass on that."

Dean glanced from his brother to the petite blonde standing beside him. ""Well, I'm not walking out that door with you, sweetheart," he said flatly. "I'm just not. So what are you going to do? Are you going to kill me?"

"Yes," started Buffy at the same instant that Sam said, "No."

"Why?" demanded the demon, and his voice slipped a few notes deeper. "You don't know what I've done. You don't know what I did to _her_. I might have it coming."

It was abundantly clear to each of the others which 'her' he was referring to.

"He probably does," muttered Spike. Angel and Buffy did not disagree.

"Well, I don't care," snapped Sam. "Because you are my brother, and I'm here to take you home."

"Ha!" Dean poured himself yet another bourbon and wiped at his eyes. "'You're my brother, and I'm here to take you home.'" He mocked Sam's earnest tone. "Yeah, what is this, Lifetime? Huh? With your puppy-dog eyes? Oh, thanks, Sammy. I needed that."

"Enough." Buffy shoved her hand into the pocket of her coat and pulled out a pair of jangling, sigil-marked manacles.

Dean rolled his eyes. "Come on, blondie. You really think those are gonna work?"

"There's one way to find out," said the Slayer grimly.

"Okay." The demon leapt the bar counter in one swift, easy movement, knocking glasses down to shatter on the hardwood floor. "Let's find out."

The first five minutes of fighting were easy. Dean knew his brother's style – hell, he'd been the one who taught him how to throw a halfway decent punch – and with that sling tying up his left arm, Sam was mostly out of it. The demon's first tactic was to push past the others and back into the great outdoors – that took care of the vampires, leaving them trapped inside the bar, ineffectual brawlers in the sunlight.

As for Buffy, he could keep her at bay easily enough. The demon had plenty of experience sparring with Slayers, and Summers was not anywhere near as rough as the last Slayer he'd wrangled with. Even at her most polished, Lehane'd had her rough edges, and as a ghost-turned-zombie-turned-'real girl,' she had been nothing but rough edges.

It was almost entertaining, knocking the Slayer back down to size. She would come at him with the intense Slayer fervor, and Dean simply side-stepped her or stopped her with a blow to the solar plexus – the kidneys – the knees – that left her gasping for air. He figured he'd give it another five minutes, and then knock her unconscious. Maybe he'd even jam the First Blade into her ribs. It would, at the very least, be fun. Maybe even more fun than finally teaching his little brother a lesson.

All in all, everything was turning up Dean. And then that damn redneck militia boy showed up, trying to go all Inigo Montoya on him. Putting the obnoxious bastard – what was his name? Cole? Cody? – back into his place was just distracting enough that he was not prepared for Sammy to whip out a flask of Holy Water, splash it into his face, and slap one of those damn anti-demon cuffs on him while he was wiping the burning liquid out of his eyes.

Looking unreasonably satisfied with herself, the Slayer cold-cocked the militia man on the back of the head, and he fell to the ground. Dean struggled briefly against the manacles, but despite his enhanced strength, the chains refused to budge. With no other good alternatives, the demon allowed his brother and friends to manhandle him across the bar parking lot and into the backseat of the Impala, sandwiching him in between the two vampires.

They smelled. If demons reeked sometimes of sulfur, vampires were worse. They smelled cold and damp, like the inside of a grave. As a human, Dean had never noticed. Now, well, it smelled better than six days ago when Crowley had puked in the back seat of the Chevy – although, given that the King of Hell had just finished eating spaghetti in vodka sauce – well, really just pasta with vodka – that wasn't saying much.

He kept his mouth shut for the first hour of the drive, until Samantha had to go and insist that Dean not instantly killing the Inigo Montoya wannabe had been a sign of kindness. Dean had to set him straight on that one. He explained why giving Cole – Cody – whatever – a chance to avenge his father and then knocking him senseless had been anything but merciful. He finished with, "And what I'm gonna do to you, Sammy . . . well, that ain't gonna be mercy, either."

"You can't convince me, Dean. You're still in there. I know it," insisted his little brother. He gestured to the silver necklace dangling from the rearview mirror. Dean had been too lazy to take it down. "I mean, you still have this."

The demon shrugged. "Oh, sure, Sammy. I salted and burned the hell out of that chick, but I held onto a damn piece of jewelry. Must mean I'm a little innocent angel after all." He snorted. "Hate to break it to you, but the brother you think you're missing ain't coming back no more – and neither is that dead Slayer. One thing I will say for her, though, she was definitely the least obnoxious of all of you."

Buffy twisted around in her seat and scowled at the demon. "Sam," she said coldly, "I think you should let me sort out your brother."

The hunter shook his head, "I would, if I thought it would help any."

"How about you sort him out, then? I could drive for you."

"NO!" said Sam and Dean in unison, the one thing they could still agree on. Spike and Angel echoed the sentiment with even more horror.

"What?" retorted Buffy.

"You can't drive, blondie," snarled Dean. "Not just that this ride's off-limits, but you couldn't drive a Hot Wheels car across a kitchen floor. One of the many other things I learned from Boston girl. She told me an awful lot about you three – Buffy and her two vampire ex-boyfriends. Girl never really had much of a filter when it came to me."

_This could be unfortunate,_ thought Spike to himself. He scooted a half-inch closer to the window in an effort to get himself as far from the demon as possible.

"Can you make him stop?" hissed Buffy to Sam.

"Sorry, no, I can't," the younger Winchester admitted ruefully. "Trust me, I would have shut him up twenty minutes ago."

"Only twenty minutes? You're getting soft, Sammy."

Sam finally lost his patience. "Dude, shut up!"

"Nuh uh," said the demon mulishly. "If I have to deal with all of you, you all have to deal with me. You should have just left me alone. I wasn't bothering you. I wasn't tricking sons of bitches into selling their souls to cross-roads demons – unlike _some_ people in this car," he added meaningfully.

Everyone looked at Sam.

"That was an accident. He wasn't supposed to go through with the deal."

Spike and Angel exchanged uncomfortable looks across the back seat.

Dean laughed. It was not a friendly sound. "What did you think would happen, Sam? You get some idiot all worked up about a kiss and a demon being the answer to all his problems, and what do you think he's gonna do?"

"Why did you kill Faith?" asked Buffy. Since the demon was being so chatty, he might as well chat about something she actually wanted to hear the answer to.

"Sure thing, sweetheart," purred Dean, his tone dripping with venom. "Snapped her neck like a candy cane. She didn't even see it coming."

"I didn't ask how or if you did it. I asked why."

"Why? Cause my brilliant brother here frakked up. 'Cause she was dying anyway, and I ain't never been big on patience. Ain't that right, Sammy?" He allowed the question to dangle in the air.

"Dean – "

"You really shouldn't have done that, little brother. You should've let her be. It wasn't kindness, what you did. You think you're so high and mighty – all of you," he tacked on with a sweeping glance across the Chevy to include all four of them.

The demon went on, "You think you're crusaders of the light, so much better than everyone and everything else around you. But here's the thing – you're just lyin' to yourselves. Dead girl, well . . ." he paused, smiling bitterly, "she knew the truth."

"Which is?" demanded the Slayer tersely.

Dean turned his bitter smile on her. "Monsters, heroes, it's all different flavors of the same thing. At least she was honest enough to see that. You bunch, though, you never stop lying for long enough to get a look at what the truth is."

And having said his piece, the demon clammed up and did not speak for the rest of the drive.

* * *

**August 8th, 2016, Lebanon, Kansas, 7:50 p.m.**

Everything was too cold. Everything ached. Everything hurt. Angry words from familiar voices drifted to her on clouds of gray smoke. Everything was _too_ _much_.

Faith screamed, and her world exploded back into color. She was standing in the room that the Men of Letters had used as a dungeon, on a dark slate floor back behind a series of heavy metal shelves to mask their less-friendly activities from anyone who should happen to accidentally open the door. Strapped to a hard metal chair with both embossed leather straps and engraved iron chains, the chair centered over a devil's trap etched into the floor, was Dean Winchester. He was rocking back and forth in his chair, and he had sweated clear through his dark red shirt.

Their eyes met, and they looked at one another consideringly. Faith leaned against the wooden table, crossing her arms over her chest in a display of nonchalance, and then she fell halfway through the wood. Dean snorted.

"You look like Hell," she said unironically as she stepped out of the table, glancing down at the emptied, uncapped syringes scattered across the scarred wooden top. To the far right of the syringes were a handful of weapons, including a demon-killing knife and an angel blade. To the far left was a very familiar necklace. Faith lifted it from the table and slipped it over her neck. A feeling of increased clarity swept over her. She had not died in the bunker, but the year and change spent wandering through its labyrinthine hallways meant that she was stronger here.

"And you look better without all the demon snot."

"Oh, it's gone?" The Slayer craned her neck downwards. Sure enough, no green Fyarl demon goop, not on her hands, not in her hair, not on her jacket. Her clothes were different, too. Now she was wearing the jeans and the tank top that he had burned her in. "Huh, I hadn't noticed."

"Out of curiosity, just how much does it take for a ghost to, you know, die around here?"

Faith picked up one of the syringes off of the table. "Wondered the same thing myself." She poked the needle into the tip of one translucent finger. "Hmm. That doesn't hurt." Satisfied, she dropped the syringe back among its fellows.

"Where you been, Slayer? Thought you'd move on with all that damn salt and fire." By Dean's calculations, he had another half hour before Sam returned for the round of priest-blessed blood injections. He could afford a little small talk.

The ghost shook her head. "No such luck – I appreciate the gesture, though. Turns out Heaven's closed, and that deal you made with Crowley to keep me out of Hell still stands. It's just me and the Veil, unless I can find the energy to show up here." She jutted her chin out towards the devil's trap and the engraved handcuffs. "Those really work on you?"

"Not for too much longer," said Dean. He was soaked through with perspiration, and every shot of that damned human blood into his veins burned like hellfire, but the more human he became, the less the bonding held. After the next injection, or maybe the one after, he figured he would be able to spring himself loose. "You missed the most fun road trip ever on the way back here."

"Did I?" asked Faith without too much curiosity.

It wasn't worth lying about. "No. Not really. Me, Sam, Buffy, her star-crossed exes."

"Sounds like quite the party. Wouldn't've been room for me."

"You're always welcome to sit on my lap." Dean leered at her.

"I'll pass, thanks." The Slayer frowned in thought, twirling an angel blade in her hands, then said, "I want to make a deal."

"I'm listening."

"If I help you out here – let you off the leash – could you do one thing for me?"

"Depends. What do you want?"

Faith crossed into the devil's trap and dropped the cross into the demon's hand. "I want you to destroy this," she hissed, and the temperature in the room plummeted. "Melt it down, crush the stone to powder, I don't care what it takes. Destroy it."

The demon raised an eyebrow. "You like hanging out in the Veil that much?"

"I want to be done, Dean. If you can get me that, I'll let you out of here."

He searched the dark eyes, almost imagining that he could see stars in the depths of the empty pupils. Dean didn't bother asking if he could trust her. He knew he could. "Okay, then. Hop to it – before my dear brother gets back."

Nodding, Faith reached down and scratched out the paint-filled lines of the devil's trap with her angel blade. Then she pulled a ghostly bobby pin out of her hair and twisted it into the spelled handcuffs. The manacles fell open with a soft clank, and the ghost stepped backwards.

Dean shoved the necklace into his front pocket, grabbed a wicked-looking knife off of the table and rushed to the door.

"You gonna hold up your side of the bargain?" called Faith after him, sounding almost mournful.

The demon flashed her a chilling smile over his shoulder. "For you, sweetheart, always. Just got a few loose ends to tie up, first."

One of the metal shelving units scraped across the floor, instantly blocking his way. Dean staggered to a halt just before smashing his nose into a rusting steel shelf. He turned back to look at the ghost. "Careful," he warned lightly, almost teasingly. "That's close to poltergeist behavior."

"I know," said Faith, and cracks ran up the legs of the wooden work table. The other shelving units whined and creaked as the metal protested.

Dean raised his eyebrows, impressed in spite of himself. "Nice work. How pissed off are you about this whole ghost thing, exactly?"

"Very," growled the dead woman through gritted teeth.

"Huh." He could easily duck through the gaps in the shelving, but a new idea had struck him. "You hear me mention that part about how Buffy's here?"

"What are you trying to do, Winchester?"

"Maybe nothing. Maybe something. It all depends on you."

The ghost snorted. "Don't it always. Do this, Faith; do that, Faith. Killing's wrong, Faith. Except when it's the guy who shot our beloved Tara. Then it's okay. Then it's okay to flay people alive. It ain't the killing that's wrong, you know," she commented sourly. "Not really. Not in her mind. It's me."

"You feelin' ready to give some of that back to her?" Dean could handle his brother, a Slayer, and two vampires on his own, but Zombie girl tended to make confrontations more . . . fun.

The metal shelves zoomed back into their original positions. "You know what?" mused the ghost. "Maybe I am."

She followed after him, the icy wind at his back, an ever-constant presence hovering at his six. Dean moved easily through the silent bunker, the angel blade that Faith had lifted held loosely in his grip. Four. There were four of them between him and a way out, four people who were in desperate need of their comeuppance.

The demon smiled grimly. He was looking forward to seeing Little Miss Dead Girl, halfway to poltergeist as she was, help out with that.

"I'm grabbing a beer," he called back softly over his shoulder to the ghost as they entered the kitchen. Opening the fridge, he popped the top on a twelve-ounce can and began chugging like there was no tomorrow. "You thirsty?"

"Always," mourned the Slayer in a hollow voice that was filled with the howling of the wind.

Changing the subject, the demon said conversationally, "I'm not a huge fan of these walls."

Faith did not answer, although the tile was more than a little dated.

"Think it's time we paint them red?" Dean finished.

The ghost rolled her eyes. "Melodramatic, much?"

"Not my best line?"

"Not even close."

"Can't argue with that. Come on, Slayer."

"Use my damn name, Dean," snapped Faith.

"Or?"

"Or this – " She jerked a chair into his path and knocked him off balance. His shins collided painfully with the wood, and he stumbled forwards.

"Bitch."

"Drama queen. Didn't you have a score to settle? Let's _move_."

They stalked quietly through the hallways, creeping from corner to corner, and then the whole bunker went dark. Dean grinned. "They're in the machine room. Only place you can control all the lights. He's probably triggered the emergency locks on the doors, too."

Faith faded from view, but he could still feel her, cold and furious, over his right shoulder. When she spoke, it was a mere whisper drifting into and out of his ear. "Lead on."

Dean had hunted over a thousand things since that long-ago day when John had taken Daddy's little blunt instrument and put a shotgun in his hands. He had never hunted his brother before. The novelty was rather entertaining.

He traced Sam's movements, step by step, until he reached the machine room, the chill of the Slayer close at his heels. It was empty. Dean slipped the angel blade into the back of his belt and reached for a heavy axe lying on the floor. He ran his thumb along the edge. Blunt. Perfect.

"Dean –" started Faith in a warning tone.

The door slammed shut behind them with a painful, infinite finality. There came the thud of wood banging down across the door as a bar swung into place.

"Gonna try to lock me in, is he?" muttered the demon in amusement. His grin widened. "Huff and puff and blow the house down, would you, Faith?"

The ghost closed her eyes, scrunching them tight, and then she opened them. The door shattered into a thousand flying splinters, spraying their welcome party in their faces.

Angel and Spike darted backwards. Shards of wood traveling at high velocity were not healthy for vampires. Buffy went pale at the sight of an almost transparent Faith Lehane. Sam merely shook his head. Honestly, at this point, he wasn't even that surprised, anymore.

"Faith?" gasped the older Slayer. "You're – "

"Oh, shut up," grumbled Faith. She opened her palm and twisted, sending Buffy five feet through the air to slam against the nearest wall. The blonde's head struck the tile with a sharp crack, and she slid down to the concrete floor. Only now did the blood drain out of Sam's face.

"Dean – " he hollered at the same time that Spike snarled, "Faith – " and darted forwards.

"You got the fangs?" hissed the demon under his breath.

"Yeah."

A furious wind swept across the room, sending a second wave of splinters zooming at the vampires.

"Good," said Dean. "I'll get Sammy." He advanced on the hunter. "See, here's the thing I realized, little bro. Back when I – well, back when I cared about all this sh-t, I thought I could count on two people – you and her." The demon jerked his head towards Faith. "Funny thing is, I can't count on you. Honestly, I'm not sure if I ever could. But I can count on her."

"Dean – "

"I warned you, Sammy. I warned you several times. Now, you're going to have to pay up."

The demon advanced on his younger brother, axe brandished high. He was laughing. Maybe this was how Cain had felt, when he sent Abel upstairs to meet his maker. Little brothers – G-d, they were overrated. He rounded the corner, ready to embed his axe in the center of his brother's sternum. Then he heard a noise behind him, and he whirled. Somehow, Sam had doubled back.

The hunter slipped between the unceasing rain of splinters and the vampires, making his way across the concrete to the unconscious Slayer. He locked his arms under Buffy's arms and began to drag her to safety.

Grinning, Dean advanced. This was far too easy.

Suddenly, arms of adamant wrapped around him from behind, holding him still with superhuman strength.

"It's over, Dean," said the gravel voice of Castiel in his ear. "It's over."

Dammit. When had the blasted angel gotten here? Furious, the demon bellowed a half-formed imprecation and threw his weight forward and backwards, struggling against Castiel's embrace. His eyes flared to black, and his gaze flashed across the hall to stare into a transparent face. The ghost advanced forward, hands outstretched, and the rain of wooden splinters intensified. The walls around them groaned, and the tile on either side of Faith cracked all to pieces.

Sam ran forward, pulling a syringe of blood out of his pocket, which he then jammed into the side of his brother's neck. Buffy groaned as she regained consciousness. Black eyes faded to green. With a quick tilt of her head, the dead woman vanished, leaving Dean alone in the epicenter of a sh-tstorm.

* * *

**August 9th, 2016, Lebanon, Kansas, 8:30 p.m.**

His mind was panicked, alternatively racing and frozen, and he had been buffeted by a swarm of unforgiving emotions until he finally shut it all down, forcing himself into a detached numbness. Tomorrow. He could process things tomorrow.

Someone knocked on his bedroom door, and Dean said merely, "Come in."

It was Castiel. They spoke for a few minutes, mostly of apologies and Sam and if he had been able to heal Buffy's concussion. Finally, as the angel made to leave the room, the hunter cleared his throat. "Cass?"

"Yes, Dean?"

"I know . . ." He swallowed. "I know I have no right to ask it of you, but would you be willing to do one more thing for me?"

Sounding concerned, Castiel asked, "What do you need? Sam said he would pick you up some food – and some pie."

"You aren't going to like it." The hunter glanced away nervously.

"None of us have much liked anyone else's decisions recently," said Castiel in a sentence that made quite the muddle of things.

Somehow, Dean still managed to understand him. "Cass, it's a pretty big favor. You don't have to do it, if you don't want to."

The angel stared at him for a long moment, his blue eyes narrowed in concentration. At length, he said, "Tell me, Dean. What do you need?"

* * *

His second visitor was . . . somewhat less congenial. Five minutes after Castiel left, the Slayer arrived. She knocked on the door and waited for his response before entering, and the look she gave him was somewhat more abashed than usual.

Buffy paused, observing the man in front of her. She had so many questions, most of them along the lines of "Why did you – ?" or "How could you – ?" But she asked none of them. She merely watched the man, pale and sweating and looking like he had been hit by a train. His hands were clenched over his knees, and Buffy wondered if that was to keep them from shaking. On his way out the door on a supply run for fried food and alcohol, Sam had compared the demon cure to withdrawal, and now she wondered if this was how Willow had felt when she tried to quit magic.

"Good to have you back, Dean," she finally said.

"Good to be back," answered the hunter woodenly, his face an expressionless mask.

"I spoke with Castiel. He explained a little more about what happened . . . to Faith."

"I'm sorry about that. About what I did to her." A muscle pulsed in the man's cheek, and he looked away, unable to meet the Slayer's too-sympathetic eyes.

"I'm sure you are," said Buffy. "I wish you'd called me."

"Mmm?" It was the most neutral response that he could think of.

"When Faith showed up. When your brother was dying. When you needed to take down a Knight of Hell. When your prophet was killed. When you felt like you had no choice but to take on the Mark of Cain." Her voice became more impassioned with every sentence. "I could have – _we_ could have helped you."

There went the muscle again, twitching in his cheek. Buffy waited for the hunter to reply, knowing that he was already backed against a wall, and that she did not want to push him any further up against the metaphorical brick.

For his part, Dean struggled to answer her. He had never been much good at needing help – mostly because there weren't too many people who were there to help when he needed it. He had trusted the one Slayer, trust that had been earned and grown over long days in his Chevy and long nights in any one of a hundred cemeteries scattered here and there across the lower forty-eight. Buffy, as well-meaning and competent as she might be, had yet to earn that trust. It did not help that all of Faith's distrust and skepticism of the Slayer organization had been passed on to him.

"I appreciate that," he said after a long, awkward moment that seemed to last forever.

"I know . . . I know that we aren't Faith, but we are here, Dean. If you need us."

"Thanks," said Dean, wishing this conversation would just come to an end.

To the man's great relief, Buffy sensed the unstated dismissal and with another sad, confused look, she walked away.

A little later, Spike and Angel dropped by independently of one another, with nary a word spoken. The former handed him a flask of bourbon and a burner phone, and the second returned the cross necklace that had been taken away from him after the last incident in the hallway. Dean appreciated their silence – it was one of their best qualities, frankly. And right now, with everything raw and stinging and painful again, after the blissful lack of caring that accompanied being a demon, Dean could use more than a little silence.

But even then, that wasn't enough. Dean felt the pressure building up inside his head, the pressure to _fix things_. Voices in the back of his mind were clamoring that this could never be fixed, and so after two quick nips of bourbon, he knew it was time to call Faith's girls. He knew they were back in Cleveland, that Buffy had sent them home without giving them any choice in the matter, but he also knew that he needed to apologize. G-d – did he need to apologize. After staring at his new cell phone for another endless moment, he finally punched in Becka's number.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Becks. It's, uh, it's Dean."

There was an uncomfortable silence before she said, ". . . Hi. Buffy already called."

Dean winced. He did not want to speculate about what the Slayer-in-chief had told them. "Is Lily there? There's something I need to say to both of you."

"She's downstairs. Let me go get her."

Neither of them spoke as the brunette Slayer tromped along the hallway and down the stairs to the kitchen of the townhouse. Dean could hear her footsteps sinking heavily into each of the steps, and his anxiety grew with every clodding footfall.

"Lil – phone's for us."

A stool scraped against tile somewhere in the background. "Is that Buffy again?" came Lily's muffled voice.

"No. It's Dean."

"Put him on speaker, then."

"Hi, Lily."

"Hey, Dean." Her voice was marginally less unfriendly than her best friend's. "How you holding up?"

"I'm . . . Buffy told me that you two were there, back at the gas station. I'm sorry you had to see that."

Becka hissed softly through her teeth, but Lily, undaunted, said, "Was she dead before you set that fire?"

"Yes."

"Why did you do it?"

"She was dying – resurrection spell stopped working. I . . . I didn't want her to suffer."

"You telling me that the demon version of you was really that concerned with her suffering?" demanded Becka sharply.

"Beck," cut in Lily. "Does it really matter? Whatever his reasons, I'm – I'm glad that she didn't suffer."

"I can't . . ." the brunette huffed, angrily and exhausted. "I can't do this, Dean. I'm sorry. Everything's just too present right now."

"I get it," said Dean, striving for unaffected. "I'll let you go. Take care, Becka. You too, Lily."

"The wedding's August first," Becka reminded him abruptly. "You'll be there?"

Confused, he started, "Beck – "

"No, sorry, let me rephrase that. I shouldn't have made it a question. You'll be there," said the engineer firmly. "Sam will be there. And you'll show up the night before the wedding, and we'll have a couple of drinks in honor of Faith, and I'll hug you and forgive you for everything, okay?"

"Becka – "

"Don't you dare try to miss my wedding," hissed the Slayer. "Or I'll come down to Kansas myself and make you regret it."

"All right," the hunter admitted defeat. "August first. We'll be there."

"Good."

"Be safe, Dean," added Lily. "We really are glad you're back. Even if we're having a hard time with this."

"I'm sorry," Dean apologized for what felt like the thousandth time. He just wished that 'sorry' meant something these days.

* * *

**August 9th, 2016, Lebanon, Kansas, 11:00 p.m.**

He was so damn tired of the apology tour. And there was one last stop – well, two, really, but he had to wait until Sam got back from his lengthy grocery shopping trip for the very last one. While his baby-sitters were cooking up something in the kitchen, Dean snuck out of his room and padded softly down the hallway to one of the many work rooms in the bunker. He gathered his supplies together, dreading the apologies that would soon be demanded of him.

After his preparations were completed, he tossed a lit match into a copper brazier and waited for her to appear. It did not take long.

"Hey," said Faith. The ghost's eyes darted across the room, taking in the brazier with the warming pan inside it, and the necklace dangling a few inches over the fire before finally settling on his face. Realizing that he was going to keep his promise, she smiled, one of those tired smiles that still somehow managed to reach her eyes, and hazarded quietly, "Showtime?"

Dean sighed. Better to get this part over with sooner rather than later. "I'm sorr – "

The Slayer interrupted him instantly. "Skip it."

Well. He guessed that made things a little easier. The man cleared his throat. "I talked to Castiel. After the whole Metatron fiasco and everything else, he made friends with this angel called Hannah. She's got a bit more pull upstairs than I'd've figured. Anyway, Hannah talked to her people this evening. Had to do a little arm twisting, but end result is that they've got one of the penthouse suites up there with your name on it."

"Not sure that I'm exactly Heaven-material here."

"You are." The hunter paused, shoving his hands into his pockets to keep from fidgeting. "There's something else you need to know."

Faith raised an eyebrow. "Oh?" The promise of an ending, a real ending, made control far simpler than she had anticipated. She could keep it together for a few minutes more. It was almost over.

"When you get bored with that penthouse – which we both know you will," he added before she could interject, "follow the road."

Her other eyebrow climbed up to join the first. "The road?"

"The Axis Mundi," Dean clarified. "It's a road that leads through Heaven to the Garden at the center."

"What would I want to do with a garden? Dude, you know me. I've got like two black thumbs."

"There's a guy – Ash. That time that Sam and I got dragged up there, turns out Ash'd figured out how to game the rules, travel around the place. He'd built this set-up to look like a heavenly version of Harvelle's Roadhouse. If you find the Axis Mundi, Ash'll find you. And then he can show you how to find whoever you want – Bobby, Wes, your first Watcher, your mom – "

"My mom won't be in Heaven," Faith said derisively. "Yours might, but mine sure as hell won't."

He shrugged. "Well, if you see my mom, tell her 'hi' for me."

"Will do." The ghost stuck her hands into the pockets of her spectral jeans. "So . . ." she nodded towards the cross necklace still gripped in his fist. "We gonna do this, or what?"

Dean stared at her for a long minute, saying nothing. He hated being vulnerable, hated needing others, but Dean would have been lying if he did not admit that he needed her. Had always needed her, had needed her for so long that the thought of losing her again made him want to retch. Life had been so, so much easier as a demon.

"Talk to me," the Slayer urged when he made no move to open his mouth.

"I wish I'd been me. Before," he admitted, feeling a fresh wave of guilt.

Faith cocked her head to one side. "Yeah?"

"We'd've raised Hell," said Dean.

The Slayer chuckled. "I think we kind of did anyway."

Not much that he could say to that, other than, "Touché."

Taking half a step forward, the ghost announced, "I feel bad, leaving you with all this sh-t."

Dean laughed without humor. It was a jagged sound that scraped and cut at his already bleeding insides. "Oh, darlin'. There's always sh-t."

"See?" Faith smiled, a gesture more filled with sorrow than mirth. Momentarily, she was tempted to touch him. "There he is, my knight in flaming armor."

"I swear, if you were corporeal right now, I would smack you for that."

This time, her smile was actually amused. "Come on, Dean. Didn't your daddy teach you never to hit women?"

"Not ghost women."

"Fair point." The Slayer exhaled. "But, cut the crap for a second here, Winchester, will you really be okay?"

"Seriously? After everything that I did to you – not least of which is keeping you here – and _you're_ asking _me_ if _I'm_ okay?"

"I could have left, if I'd really wanted to," the Slayer reminded him. "Don't try to take credit for what I did."

He looked away. "I should have done better. Should have been better."

"I think we did the best that we could." Faith watched the hunter for a long moment and then sighed. "This is never going to be easy, is it? You and me, saying goodbye?"

"No." Dean shook his head. "I don't think it is."

"Well, we need to finish up this little song and dance, 'cause I haven't had the penthouse suite since my adventures with the Mayor back in SunnyD. Kinda curious to see what the do-gooder version looks like."

"Right." Dean blinked hastily, then he looked away from her and dropped the cross into the brazier. "Should take it about ninety seconds to melt," he informed her. "I timed it earlier with some bullets."

"Great." But for the first time, her voice wavered. "This Axis Mundi thing – you're sure it'll help me find this buddy of yours with all the cheat codes to the Happy Hunting Ground in the sky?"

"Ash'll get you sorted. Hell, he might even find you first."

"Hope so." The Slayer hesitated for a long moment, then she slowly walked around her side of the brazier, keeping her distance from the fire, until she stood merely a foot away from Dean.

He met her eyes, and for once that distant, unearthly gaze was focused solidly on him. Not fixed too close or too far. Just focused directly on him.

"Time's up," said the ghost quietly as her outline began to fade away. She looked down towards the fire.

"Faith?"

"Huh?" She glanced up from the smoldering coals.

The words caught in his throat, but he forced them out anyway. "You should know. I – I loved you, too."

Her gaze softening, Faith grinned. "Look after yourself, Dean."

Much as he wanted to look away, Dean could not glance down, even as undesired moisture began to burn behind his eyes. "What?" he joked feebly. "Like you won't figure a way to keep watching out for me?"

The only response was a faint sound of ghostly laughter and the cool pressure of a pair of insubstantial lips against his cheek, and then she was finally, finally gone.

* * *

It was perhaps thirty minutes later when Sam found him, still in that old workroom, the air filled with the slight tang of molten silver, blue green dust scattered all across the floor. Dean sat in the corner, his arms around his knees, his head tilted back against the wall. Sam knew from one glance at his brother's face that he had been crying.

The hunter crouched down beside his older brother and gently set the grease-stained paper bag in his left hand on the floor. It contained a burger, fries, a pie of apple pie in a clear plastic container – a peace offering to start patching up all the cracks. "Dean?"

His brother looked up, and his shoulders slumped in defeat. He stared down at his boots. "I'm sorry, Sammy," he said quietly, his voice still wet, as if there were more tears yet to come. "I should have told you."

Glancing around the room, it didn't take much for Sam to guess where his mind was headed. "About Faith?" he surmised.

"Yeah." Dean exhaled heavily, and he wiped at the skin below his eyes. "You and me," he said hurriedly, desperate to explain and even more desperate to have the explanation finished and over with. "We lose people all the time – hell, the road behind us is practically the freaking Dead Marshes. Mom, Dad, Bobby, Caleb, Pastor Jimmy, Jo, Ellen, Jess, Benny . . . I thought I was used to it, Sammy. I thought I could handle it. I just never thought I'd lose her, you know?"

He turned his head away to stare at the wall. In a voice that threatened to implode from tension, he went on, "I could lose everyone else and feel like my guts were bleeding out, but as long as I had her, I could get through it. Don't know why. So after I lost her, I just couldn't cope. And when she turned up, G-d help me, I didn't have the strength to send her on. I couldn't lose her again. I didn't tell you because I knew you'd melt the damn necklace, and it felt like one of those things we needed to keep between us. There was . . . there was a lot of that, I guess. A lot of stuff we kept between her and me."

"It's okay," said Sam slowly. He wished – he wished that he could do something – anything more. But there was no solving this. There was no bringing the Slayer back. He had tried that, and it had ended terribly. "I get it," he lied, although he still wished his brother had told him. "You and Faith, you were always kind of your own special thing. Did you . . . ?"

Dean gestured to the still-smoking brazier in the center of the room. After that uncharacteristic explosion of emotion, he was already drawing back into himself. "Necklace is melted, turquoise is crushed. Ka-blooey."

"Okay," repeated Sam. Nothing was okay today, but he had Dean back, and that had to count for something. "Here." He pushed the white paper bag along the floor to his brother. "Got you some dinner. Fork's in the bag. There's, uh, beer in the kitchen when you're ready."

"Thanks. I'll be along in a minute."

"I'm – I'm glad you're home, Dean." Sam clasped his brother on the shoulder, squeezing tight for a moment, and then he left.

Leaning his head back against the wall, the man stared at the silver liquid in the brazier and the scattered turquoise powder. He would be fine. He would be fine. He just needed a minute.

The Mark on his arm flared hungrily, and the hunter choked back a note of hysteria. Who the hell was he trying to kid? He wasn't fine. He hadn't been fine in a long time – and he didn't think he would be again. Not for a long, long while.

Dean closed his eyes and tried to remember her: her face, her voice, the way her skin felt next to his. But try as he might, all he could feel was cold. She wasn't coming back. Not again. Not anymore. He had to let go – and he would. But first, he needed a minute.


	15. Once Upon an Afterlife

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Thank you for all of the comments and kudos! One chapter left after this one. As always, feedback is greatly appreciated. :)

* * *

"Yawning again?"

Faith opened her eyes to the glare of a South Dakota summer sun and the warm metal of a half-rusted truck bed against her back. She glanced to her right, to the familiar face of a much-younger Dean Winchester than the one she had just said goodbye to, the corners of his mouth quirked upwards in amusement.

"Yeah," croaked the Slayer finally, placing the sunlight, the scrapyard, and her particular pair of boots. This was the Singer Salvage Yard, the morning after Dean had picked her up from the airport in Omaha, after Castiel had dragged him up and out of Hell.

"What, Bobby's floor not comfortable enough for you?" he teased.

"My bed in London is better," Faith groused. She had said this – or something much like this, on that long-ago summer day.

"Probably. I told you we could turf Sam onto the floor," Dean reminded her.

The woman scoffed, "Yeah, like that was ever actually going to happen."

"Huh. Well, if you're in that much need of shut-eye, why don't you grab fifty winks, then? We don't need to be anywhere for a minute. Bobby'll holler if he finds anything in those books." Not bothering to ask for permission, the hunter tugged the strap of Faith's gray tank top back over her shoulder and pulled her closer, until she was halfway lying in his lap.

Faith permitted the indignity, the same way she had eight years previously. She squirmed onto her side, her cheek resting against the worn cotton of his thin t-shirt. Closing her eyes tightly, the woman imagined that she could hear his heartbeat, soft and regular and reassuring. At length, she said, "This is dumb, but I'm a little worried that if I fall asleep, you'll go away again."

His tone was understanding without being patronizing. "Faith – "

Memory prompted her response, carrying with it a little extra hysteria. "I didn't want you to die, Dean."

The hunter's hand was warm and callused on the bare skin of her arm. "Vampires." It was a request to focus, his voice light, joking. "Which one'd win in a fight? Your kind or mine?"

"Dumb question. Obviously, mine," Faith answered automatically.

"Not in the sunlight," he pointed out.

Trust him to get pedantic about stupid details. The Slayer slammed her knee into the side of his leg in retaliation. "You didn't mention sunlight."

He chuckled, a low rumble in his throat. "You gotta use your imagination."

Half-irritated, half-still concerned, the Slayer started, "Dean – "

Cutting her off before she could go any further, he put a single index finger against her lips. "I'm here, okay?" Dean said easily, as if they were discussing what caliber of silver bullets worked best for putting down werewolves. "I'm here, you're here, we're both here. So talk to me about vampires."

Faith slept in the sunlight, in the hollow happiness of her memories, with the familiar mumble of shop talk dulling the wild flailing of her mind. It was only a dream, and the Slayer knew that, but it has been so long since she had dreamt of anything good. For now and for as long as she could, Faith would take whatever good dreams came her way.

She spent an entire year dreaming in sunshine. The bed of the pick-up truck wasn't the most comfortable place, and so sometimes she slept on the grass, and sometimes she slept in the cab, and sometimes she used Dean as a glorified body pillow. The hunter of her memories didn't seem to notice the uncharacteristic behavior. He spoke as if on autopilot about monsters and his strange encounter with the entity called Castiel, the one that proclaimed to be a servant of the Lord.

Faith absorbed every word, just as she soaked in the heat emanating from the August sun overhead. Dean's voice was the soundtrack that filled her dreams, that coaxed away her exhaustion and chased away her regrets. On that day, they had been young. They had been alive. They had been happy.

And so, for a while, the Slayer slumbered.

Eventually however, sleep and South Dakota grew boring. Then it was that Faith remembered the hunter's words – to find the Axis Mundi, she needed to follow the road. That was easy enough on its own. When she was ready, the Slayer bailed out of the old pickup truck. She retraced Dean's winding path through the junked-out wrecks of old cars until she came to Bobby Singer's weathered home and the front porch, where her leather jacket was draped over the porch railing. Faith gathered up the jacket into her arms, tucking it over her bent forearm. She had no idea where this road might lead, and something heavier than a tank top might indeed come in handy.

Squaring her jaw, the Slayer strode across the gravel, past Dean's gleaming Impala and Bobby's far more dusty Chevelle, under the arching iron of the front gate with its sign for the salvage yard, and out onto the pothole-marked blacktop. She made it about ten feet along the old country road when the bright afternoon light instantly dimmed to the deep darkness of night, the moon and stars obscured by clouds overhead, and the unforgiving concrete beneath her feet was replaced by the slightly soggy feeling of grass and earth after a rain.

Faith looked to her left and to her right. A cemetery. Figured. The Slayer shrugged her jacket onto her shoulders and began exploring. She wandered through the cemetery, her fingers trailing over the moss-strewn tops of headstones, following the sounds of voices. She came to a stop when she caught a glimpse of the voice's owner: Dean Winchester. Again.

This time, the hunter was sprawled out across the grass not far from a freshly dug grave, carrying on a one-sided argument that Faith knew instinctively she was meant to be answering. She watched him briefly, then turned on her heel and struck out for the wrought-iron gates of the cemetery.

This was not the Axis Mundi – not yet. And there had to be more to her afterlife than one other person. She didn't – she wasn't ready or willing to consider what that might mean. Faith was her own person. She had always been her own person. The thought of her un-life being defined by someone else was incredibly unpalatable.

She scaled the cemetery fence and dropped down easily onto the pavement beyond. Faith checked to make sure that the memory of Dean Winchester was not following her, and then she struck out across the asphalt leading away from the cemetery.

As she rounded the curve of the road, she found herself transported indoors, to a cluttered, shabby apartment that she had nearly forgotten. Faith was sitting on a threadbare couch with broken springs, the same couch that she had lived on for a handful of months when she was sixteen.

Standing in front of her, with a bouquet of flowers in his hands, was a scruffy blond teenager. He was grinning at her, his smile gaping wide and dopey, as he announced, "And that's not all, babe. We're going to dinner tonight. You, me – actual reservations and everything. It'll be a real Valentine's."

Oh, God. Steve. Faith had thought she had put her kleptomaniac boyfriend behind her. He had been a bright spot in another one of the many not-so-great stretches between getting kicked out of home by her mother's new boyfriend and when she finally landed herself in the penitentiary a few years later.

Sure, this had all come crumbling down to rubble not too long after this night, but before she knew about all the stealing, before she learned that she should never have trusted him, she had been happy – ecstatically happy. The one and only time that a guy had ever brought her flowers.

The Slayer looked up at Steve, at his expectant face. When she was sixteen, she had babbled with excitement and thrown herself at him, pulling him into a make-out session that had nearly made them miss their reservations. But that had been then.

Now, although she could still feel the pressure of the memory, urging her to leap to her feet, to be as wildly and freely thrilled as only a teenager could be, she forced herself to step backwards. The road. She had to find the road. Had to find the way out.

Faith pushed past Steve, who continued to be oblivious to her changed demeanor, pushing open closet doors and tossing the dilapidated apartment that she had shared with him and two other runaways. There had to be a road somewhere. Where could it be? Finally, a half-torn circular for an oil change place on the pockmarked kitchen table caught her eye. Faith raced to the circular, picking it up and staring at it. Now what? On impulse, she tipped her head forwards, leaning until her nose booped the edge of the cardboard.

Then she was spinning in circles, rather like the times that Castiel had used his teleporting mumbo jumbo on her, until her feet struck solid linoleum and she opened her eyes.

Suddenly sick to her stomach, Faith recognized this place, recognized the peeling wallpaper, the scratched up furniture, the smell of burning spaghetti sauce on the stove, the old FM radio blaring Sinatra. The Slayer's legs carried her into the kitchen. There was her mother, ruining dinner and singing happily along to "You Make Me Feel So Young." She turned around and beamed at the sight of her daughter.

"Hey, little firecracker! How was your nap?"

Faith glanced down, to the rabbit footie pajamas that she was wearing, and wanted to cry. But she couldn't cry. Not now. The Slayer gritted her teeth, closing her eyes as her mother dropped a rubber spatula, dripping with spaghetti sauce, back onto the stove top and rushed across the room to embrace Faith.

It took every ounce of Faith's not-inconsiderable will-power to hold still while her mom's too-thin arms wrapped around her tightly, until she could barely breathe. The woman carried on as if Faith had spoken, seeming not to hear her silence – the same way that Dean and Steve had been. Heaven, Faith was quickly realizing, was one weirdly wacked-up place.

"I burned the first batch, but you don't mind a little texture on your pasta, do you, sweetheart?"

Despite herself, Faith shook her head.

As soon as her mother released her, the Slayer was tearing back into the living room. There had been a road map, she remembered vaguely. One of those carpet maps of a small town. A hand-me-down from her cousin. Faith tore into the toy closet, pulling out a couple of scalped Barbie dolls, until she found the carpet. Dragging it out into the middle of the grim living room, she jumped straight down onto it with both feet.

She was back inside the whirlwind, nausea pounding at her temples, for another long moment, and then she hit the ground. The odor of burned spaghetti was replaced with something equally familiar but far less dangerous: beer, fried food, human bodies. Faith pushed herself up off the sticky barroom floor and looked directly into the barrel of a shotgun.

A young man, maybe mid-twenties, with an unabashed mullet was staring down the stock of his rifle at her. "Who are you?" demanded mullet-man.

In one swift movement, Faith knocked the barrel of the shotgun to the side with her left hand while she yanked the stake from her belt with her right – she had spotted it in the cemetery memory and had instantly tucked it into her waistband. A girl never knew when she was going to need to stab someone with something sharp and pointy.

Once the rifle was no longer pointing her in the face, the Slayer tugged it out of the man's hands and threw it halfway across the room. "Better question is, who're you, Billy Ray?" Narrowing her eyes in concentration, Faith began thinking aloud. "Bar, mullet – you happen to go by the name of Ash, by any chance?"

The man's hostility and suspicion did not diminish in the slightest. "Yes," he said stiffly, eyeing the shotgun. He dared not begin side-stepping towards it yet, however. "How do you know that? Are you an angel?" he demanded hotly.

For the first time since waking up in Bobby Singer's junkyard, Faith laughed. "Definitely not," she assured him. She slipped the stake back into her belt and extended her hand in his direction. "I'm a Vampire Slayer. Name's Faith. Dean Winchester sent me."

"Huh." Still suspicious, the mullet man reached out and shook her hand once. His grip was rough and a little clammy. "He need something?"

"Nah." The Slayer gnawed on her lip, having a momentary loss of confidence. "I mean, probably. Ain't Winchesters always needing something? But no, I'm not really here for him. I'm here 'cuz I died. And he told me this was a good place, when the quiet got boring."

"We have a few people who come in here from time to time," admitted Ash. "Those who find the Axis Mundi." Still wary, he retreated behind the bar. Faith did not stop him. The man reached into one of the refrigerated drawers beneath the bar and retrieved two PBRs. "You thirsty?" he offered, sliding one of the longnecks across the counter to her.

Recognizing the gesture for the peace offering that it was, Faith said, "Sure," and hopped up onto a barstool. She popped the cap on her beer bottle and took a long, cool drink. After the absolute bizarreness of seeing first Steve and then her dead mother, she needed something to take the edge off her nerves. When she set the bottle back onto the counter, Ash was regarding her thoughtfully.

"So," he said, taking a pull from his own beer, "why don't you tell me your story?"

"My story?" Faith squirmed on her bar stool. "Kind of a long one."

Ash shrugged. "Go ahead. We got all the time we need – literally. It's called eternity for a reason, you know."

The Slayer grimaced. "Yeah. That's what I was afraid of."

* * *

**June 3** **rd** **, 2017, London, England, 9:47 p.m.**

She could say exactly where she was in the moment that _it_ happened. The Burkle was halfway through an intense debate over the demarcation between science and magic when the world changed. A door that had been closed since almost the beginning reopened, and that which had been lost from the universe returned to it.

Suddenly, the air danced with danger. Suddenly, everything mattered. Perhaps the Burkle, too, felt the change, for her mouth went dry and she lost her train of thought. The half-second of distraction was all that Illyria needed to surge forward and seize control, unseating the mortal woman in the space of a single blink.

Illyria finished her debate with – what was his name again? Oh, yes. Andrew – and then she left Winifred's London laboratory for the flat near Piccadilly Circus. It would not do to spark suspicion. Not yet.

Smirking to herself as she descended into a crowded rush hour subway station, the Old One wondered if she ought to perhaps send Sam and Dean Winchester a fruit basket. The air was singing, for Amara had returned. Illyria recalled how the older hunter had seemed touched by _Her_ when she last saw him. Somehow, someway, this had grubby Winchester fingerprints all over it.

Screw the fruit basket – she would send them a full case of whiskey. That ought to make Winchester the elder happy. _But not_ , thought Illyria with indecent glee, _quite as happy as me_.

* * *

"What is this place?"

The two angels stood at the far end of a blank hallway, its perfectly rectangular, perfectly white walls threatening in their silent emptiness. Or perhaps Alirael only felt that way because she had spent the last three centuries toiling in the records department, and anything that wasn't a cramped room filled with floor-to-ceiling shelving and a good few thousand folios felt alien to her. She scrunched her toes inside her sensible yet stylish black pumps and looked up into the severe features of her new boss, Kushriel, who kept discipline amongst the non-angelic residents of Heaven.

Kushriel nodded to the single white door situated halfway along the hallway. "We call it solitary confinement."

"I didn't realize we had a solitary," mumbled Alirael, feeling embarrassed. She had tried to do her research on this reassignment, but it had felt mostly pointless. Ever since the Metatron debacles – plural intended – the higher-ups had clamped down on all the clerks and the recorders. Now they had mandatory "outside" rotations to different sectors of Heaven, in theory to prevent the more literary angels from following the Heavenly Scribe's example.

"We hadn't," said the older angel, and some of her brash demeanor smoothed out. "Not for millennia."

"What changed?"

The corners of Kushriel's mouth twitched into an amused smile. "We got ourselves a regular escape artist. Caught this one leaving her assigned Heaven fifteen times in two earth months."

"Where was she headed?" the recorder wondered.

Kushriel shrugged. "Unclear. Word has it that she made it all the way from the L's to the W's."

Eyebrows raised, Alirael concluded, "So you think she's entering other human's afterlives?"

"We weren't sure. Not at the time. So we let it pass, until . . ."

"Until what?"

The supervising angel's smile widened. "Until she was found in the secure facility breaking concrete off the walls and throwing it at the prisoner. I was half-tempted to give her an upgrade for that. But it sets a bad precedent, so we did this instead."

There had been only one entity in Heaven referred to as 'the prisoner.' "At Metatron? But he escaped a while ago."

"Six months, to be exact. She's been in here for seven."

"Who is she?"

"A Vampire Slayer."

Alirael cocked her head to one side and redistributed her weight between her two sensible heels. "A Slayer?" She pushed her glasses higher up the bridge of her nose. Angels were created with perfect eyesight, but millennia of contributing to the Book of Life had left her more than a little myopic. "That seems unusual. I recently finished copying over the Slayer chronicles. There's never been an incident of Slayer rebellion in Heaven. Why, they're usually so grateful to not be the Slayer anymore that they never make a peep."

"Be that as it may," said the supervisor, "this one's an absolute disaster. Those hunters must've rubbed off on her."

The recorder frowned. This did not jive with her reading. "Hunters tend to be almost as well behaved as a Slayer," she pointed out.

Kushriel gave her a surprised look. "Not this set. You really don't know who you will be guarding, do you?"

"No, I'm beginning to think that I don't."

"You'll be monitoring Faith Lehane. The so-called 'Rogue' or 'Dark' Slayer." The angel's tone turned dismissive. "The one who is only up here because she slept with Dean Winchester."

Alirael gulped. She vaguely knew about half the names on the current Slayer roster, but if the number one, don't-you-dare-forget-it name for any contemporary scholar of Slayers was Buffy Summers, the number two name was Faith Lehane. And the Winchesters were infamous.

"Really, Alirael, you hadn't known that she was here?" asked her new boss in surprise.

"I thought that was only a rumor. Lehane always seemed a little too - "

"Wicked?" supplied Kushriel.

" _Colorful_ for Heaven," finished the recorder

"Maybe," her supervisor allowed. "Anyway, she's here now, and we can't kick her out."

"Why not?"

Rolling her eyes, the other angel admitted, "Hannah made a covenant with Castiel."

"A c _ovenant_?!" gasped Alirael. "Why would she do that?"

"She is enamored of Castiel, who is enamored of the Winchesters, to the point of betraying his brothers and sisters."

"And the Winchesters - "

"They are enamored of the Slayer. Or at least Dean Winchester is. Which brings us to the other reason we tolerate her presence. It was documented by Zachariah that Dean Winchester has two great weaknesses, although I suspect that number has since grown to three. Can you guess what they are?"

The first answer was easy. "Obviously, one is his brother the abomination."

"Correct. Zachariah believed the other was Faith Lehane."

"So she is a -"

"I believe the human term is bargaining chip," the supervisor smiled nastily. Her expression becoming more severe, she said, "I trust you know to keep all of this to yourself?"

"Of course," promised Alirael.

"Very well. Then, if you have no more questions, I think it is time for you to meet your new charge."

Slightly nervous, the records angel nodded. Kushriel snapped her long, thin fingers, and the single alabaster door swung wide open. Alirael stepped forward, her heels clicking along the marble floor beneath her feet, and then she walked through the door into a decrepit human apartment that carried the odors of unwashed bodies, bad cooking, and old alcohol – this must be one of the Slayer's favorite memories.

How strange, thought Alirael, tracing her way through the memory. An unnaturally cheerful woman in her early thirties was stirring a pot of something burning on the stove top, singing along to a human radio.

"I've got the world on a string, sitting on a rainbow," trilled the woman loudly. She stuck her head into the cluttered living room. "Come on, firecracker! Sing with your mommy."

Huddled in the far corner of the dimly lit living room, her knees drawn up to her chin, wearing the largest pair of ragged bunny footed pajamas that Alirael had ever imagined possible, was a frazzled woman with deadened dark brown eyes.

"Leave me alone," she mumbled in response to what must have been her mother's call. "Leave me alone."

Alirael chose that moment to make presence known. "Faith Lehane," she began in a very business-like tone. It was not a question.

Lehane looked up from her knees and frowned. "Who're you?" she growled.

"I am Alirael, the new – "

The Slayer cut her off sharply. "My new warden, is that it? G-d, why can't a girl ever catch a break. Go to Heaven, it will be good," she dropped her voice half an octave lower, mimicking someone. "Swear to God, if I ever get my hands on him, I'm gonna wring his frigging neck."

"Whose?" prompted Alirael, curious in spite of herself.

"Uh uh." Faith shook her head. "Like I'm gonna tell you that? You'll probably find another way to use my memories against me."

The angel frowned. "You do not consider this to be a happy memory?"

The Slayer narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "You frakking kidding me, Wings? Sure, this was a good memory when it happened, but I was four then. Four!" she repeated with derision. "I didn't know anything. Didn't know that Mom was drunk, didn't know how everything was gonna play out - I'm thirty-five, you know. Or something around there. Do you age when you're a ghost? Can you look that up for me? Anyway, thirty-five or thirty-six, don't much matter. This sure as hell ain't one of my favorite memories anymore – 'specially not after you winged douchebags've made me relive it a gazillion times."

Having been given little training prior to her reassignment, Alirael was unprepared for this. She had not had to deal with actual human emotion in well – ever. She attempted to defuse the situation by trying one of the techniques she had read about. "You sound angry."

"I _am_ angry, dammit. I – " Lehane caught her breath, recovered her composure, and went on. "Here's the deal, Al - Can I call you Al? Good," she said, not waiting for an answer. "My momma, sure, she said she loved me. But she never could give up the booze - or the men. And later on, she could never give up the crack. Hell, the only thing she could ever give up was me."

"That is – "

"No," snarled the woman. "Can it, feather duster. You – you don't get to have an opinion, Al. Not on my pathetic childhood or my pathetic mom. Just . . . change the channel or get your ass out of here. 'Cause this?" she gestured dismissively to the shabby room around her. "This I don't have to share with nobody."

"I . . I will have to ask . . . I am not authorized to . . ." Alirael fidgeted uncomfortably with the pen in her hands.

"Faith! Come sing!"

Against her will, the Slayer was pulled to her feet by the invisible force of the memory. She took furious, hesitating steps towards the kitchen.

"Get me out," she repeated to Alirael, the words somewhere in the strange land between a command and a request. "Please."

* * *

**September 29** **th** **, 2017, Savannah, Georgia, 11:25 a.m.**

She had searched endlessly, researching through miles and miles of internet headlines in the guise of Winifred Burkle, investigating anything and everything she could uncover in an attempt to locate the entity that she had once served with such deep, wholehearted loyalty. In the end, after two months of internet searches and three weeks of torturing demons and angels alike, Illyria found the information that she needed.

And now, as she approached the tall woman in the deep-necked sleeveless dress standing in the front pew of an old Lutheran church in Savannah, Georgia, the Old One did not even need to ask her name. She bent at the entrance to the pew, but instead of genuflecting to the statue of Christ at the far end of the nave, she bowed to Amara. "My liege."

The woman turned slowly. She blinked at the kneeling god king, and then recognition set in. Amara raised the Old One from her knees. "Illyria."

"You look well," commented Illyria, inwardly burning with curiosity. There was so much that she needed to know, so much that she needed to ask. What had happened in all those millennia of silence? For the moment, however, she forced herself to be content with pleasantries.

Amara smiled, as if she sensed the impatience of her one-time courtier. "I have been growing," she said wryly. After a moment's hesitation, she continued, "Where is my brother? I have sought him in so many places, in so many of his houses of worship, but he is nowhere to be found. Where is he?"

"I do not know," admitted the Old One. "No one has seen or heard from him in centuries - at least that is what Michael and Lucifer told me."

" _Archangels_." Amara spat the word in derision. "What were you doing with them?"

Shrugging aimlessly, Illyria explained, "They wanted to destroy the world - I humored their attempts to court me to their sides."

"You have always been clever."

"You taught me well."

"But you have had to learn much alone," said Amara, and she frowned. "I . . . a demon called Crowley attempted to teach me about this world. It had an odd slant to it, his teaching."

Illyria said nothing. The only demons she was on a first-name basis with tended to be dead within an average of ten minutes after she learned their names. She knew _of_ Crowley, just as she did all the major players, but she had yet to meet him.

Continuing, the sister of God went on, "I have missed much, since my brother cast me out. Can I . . . can I trust you as I once did?" The question itself was light, but her tone grew darker with the follow-up, "Or do you serve one of my brother's spawn now?"

Illyria's eyes flashed an electric, lightning blue. "I serve no one, my liege." Her words were a hair shy or a snarl. "No one but you."

The Darkness stared deep into the Old One's gaze for a long, infinite moment, then she relaxed and sat in the wooden pew. "Good." She nodded for the Old One to join her. "So tell me, old friend, what has become of the world while I have been away? Has anything other than destruction occurred?"

Sinking down onto the uncomfortable bench, Illyria paused and frowned thoughtfully. "Well," she said at length, "there are these things called milkshakes."

* * *

"Faith Lehane broke out of solitary."

Alirael glanced up from her latest ream of paperwork on new arrivals (last names La to Li) to meet Kushriel's furious glare.

"What?" stammered the angel. "That's impossible."

"Apparently not. She somehow acquired a pen – an angel's pen – and she used it to find the locked door to the Axis Mundi and pick the lock. She is loose again."

Rising from her chair, Alirael wondered, "How are we going to find her?"

"We shall track her down without your help." Kushriel stared disapprovingly down her nose at the records angel. "You were tasked with watching her. This will go on your service record. And the Gardener has been told about this."

"Joshua?" gabbled the younger angel, shocked. She had known the Slayer was important, but to bother Joshua with this! No wonder Kushriel looked so peeved.

"Fool," snapped her supervisor. "Do not say his name. Now, pack up your things and go back to the clerks. You will be filing forms until the next apocalypse arrives."

"But - "

" _Out_."

Reluctantly, Alirael gathered her papers together and began the long, mortifying trek out of the new arrivals department towards the Book of Life sector. She walked slowly, dragging each foot in front of the next. This was not her fault, she attempted to reason with herself. She had merely done her job and checked in on the Slayer once every two human weeks. And now her one chance for advancement, her one chance for something other than endless reading and writing about the exploits of short-lived humans was over.

By the time she arrived at her previous office, the angel was in such a foul mood that she did not notice the door was standing ajar. In fact, she did not realize that anything was wrong until she went to sit in her chair and found a familiar insolent figure already seated there.

"Hey," said Faith casually, kicking her heavy Doc Marten boots up onto the desk, scattering some of Alirael's meticulously organized papers.

"What?" gasped the angel. "How – how are you here?"

The Slayer shrugged. "I'm sneaky, and I run fast."

"You've ruined me," Alirael mourned. "I hope that gives you some satisfaction."

"Not really. Look, Al, I didn't pull a runner to tank your reputation, okay?" the woman told her earnestly. "I did it because if I had to spend another minute with the memory of my deadbeat mother, I was going to claw my own eyes out. But I think . . . I think I might have a way to make it up to you – a way where we both come out on top."

She could not believe this was actually happening. "You're insane. And get your feet off of my files. They're important."

"Maybe I am crazy," admitted the Slayer, but she brought her boots down from the desk in a sign of good faith. "But why don't you just hear me out? It won't hurt anyone, and If you do, I might even come quietly."

"And if I don't?" the angel scoffed.

"Then . . . ." Rising to her feet, Faith cleared her throat. She shook her arm, and an angel blade dropped down the sleeve of her leather jacket into her hand. "You'd be amazed at what people just leave lying around up here," she mused conversationally, twirling the sword so that the edge glimmered in the light. "I don't want to hurt anyone, Al, but see, I really, _really_ don't like solitary."

"What do you want?" asked Alirael, taking a quick step backwards. No Slayer had ever slain an angel, but Lehane was a close ally of the Winchesters – and they had killed Zachariah.

"I think we could help each other. Do you really want to keep working the same dead-end job for the rest of eternity? Stay in this cozy little fire trap of an office?"

"I – "

Faith dropped the attitude and went for pleading, "Help me out, here. I'm not asking for much, just for some way to not get stuck in solitary anymore. Like, ever."

The angel laughed. "Don't you realize that as soon as they find you, you will be returning to solitary confinement? You'll be lucky to leave it in a century."

"Nah." The Slayer shook her head. "I ain't going back. I told you, Al. Eyes clawed out. Not exactly a pretty look on me. Or anyone, for that matter. Look, if you help me not go back there, I'll be a model prisoner. Your reputation will skyrocket."

"Heaven is not a prison."

"Ain't it? You shoulda tried that line before they shoved me back into my horrible childhood. Anyway, if you don't help me, I'll make your time as my babysitter nothing but miserable. You won't have five minutes' peace until they send you back to whatever little cubicle you worked at three promotions before this one."

Alirael looked from the unsubtle threat of the angel blade to the equally unsubtle desperation in the Slayer's eyes. If she did not acquiesce the crazy woman's request, she felt that further demotion might be the least of her worries. "Do you offer all your guards this deal?" she asked while she debated her options.

"No," said Faith. "I could lie and say there's something special about you, Al, or that I like your face, but the truth is that I'm done trying to play by the rules."

The angel raised an eyebrow. Somehow, she fancied that the Slayer had never truly tried to play by the rules. "Why now?"

"Geez," Faith exhaled. "Angels. I swear – explaining things to you lot is so ridiculously hard. You just don't get it. That people need things like personal space and toilets and breathing the air outside. I don't think one of you understands the meaning of the word 'trapped.' Except maybe Michael, but that's cause he's stuck in the Cage. Have none of you ever tried to break him out?"

She waited for a beat of silence, then continued, "Whatever. Listen, Al, I'm not asking for much. I just want you to look the other way. Don't sound the alarms when I sneak out now and then. And in return, I promise I'll be the best-behaved dead person this place has ever seen."

The angel could see no alternative that did not result with her getting disemboweled by the deranged Slayer. "If you take advantage and make me regret this . . . "

"Never," promised the Slayer fervently. "Let's shake on it."

"Very well, then."

Faith's hand, callused and firm and likely very, very, deadly, closed over the angel's and squeezed. Alirael stared into the woman's intense brown gaze and wondered what in Heaven she had just gotten herself into.

* * *

**November 17** **th** **, 2017, Seattle, Washington, 3:30 p.m.**

He was lost. He had tried to kill the Darkness, and his angel blade had shattered into a thousand glittering fragments. She was going to swallow his soul. Dean knew that, just as he knew that his favorite song was a toss-up between Travelin' Riverside Blues, and that – that other one. The hunter closed his eyes. If this was how everything ended, he'd rather see the backs of his eyelids than Amara's face, somehow still smiling.

Dean had prepared himself for the end, and so he was completely caught aback when instead of ripping his soul from his body, Amara kissed him. His surprise quickly faded to be replaced by confusion and more than a little fear. What was she doing?

The hunter struggled with himself. He needed to step away, needed to pull back, but something about Amara drew him in – and it wasn't just the way that she kissed, although she was plenty good at that, too, come to think of it.

Finally, a cool female voice said, "Well. That – oh, what is the mortal phrase? Ah, yes – that escalated quickly."

He knew that voice. Dean sprung away from Amara as if burned. He whirled to stare at the newcomer, a rail-thin brunette with cobalt hair, lips, and eyes. "Fred?" No, no that wasn't Fred. That was the – "Bluebird. What are you doing here?"

"Bluebird?" echoed Amara, glancing from the hunter to the Bluebird and back again.

Illyria frowned, unamused. "It . . . is a nickname," she explained. "Spike, the vampire half-breed I mentioned earlier, gave it to me."

"What interesting company you have been keeping. Bluebird - I can see where he found the idea. Not very original, is it?"

"Vampires rarely tend towards the original," commented the Old One dryly.

Dean watched the two of them in horror. "What are you doing here, Illyria?" he repeated, finally remembering her proper name. He came to a quick conclusion. "You're going to help her destroy everything, aren't you?"

"Not everything. Not you, Dean," Amara assured him. "Never you. You freed me." Her expression grew more serious, almost petulant. "I do have one question that I need you to answer, however."

"What?" asked Dean nervously.

"Who was that woman?"

"Who?"

Amara frowned. "The woman who was in your mind just now – the one you thought of when we kissed."

Why could they never, ever stay out of his head? Angels, demons, God's freaking sister – why were they all so interested in what went on inside his brain? "What do you mean?" said Dean in a play for time.

"Who is she?" Amara took a step forward towards him, the movement silently menacing. "This woman you often think of – I have seen her before."

"She's dead," answered Dean shortly.

Unimpressed by this answer, Illyria interjected, "Then tell our lady who she was – or shall I do it for you, Winchester?"

The hunter turned on her. "Are you screwing around in my head, too?" he demanded.

"What nonsense," snorted Illyria. "I have far more entertaining things to do. Besides, you mortals are always so dreadfully predictable. I have no need to see inside your head to know who you might be fixated upon."

"I do not like to wait, Dean." Amara drew his attention back to herself. "Who was this woman, and why do you think of her when you kiss me?"

Dean swallowed, propelled to honesty by the power of the Darkness and the fear of what might happen if he continued to dodge the question. "She was – her name was Faith. You –" he swallowed again, "you remind me of her."

Displeased, Amara pressed, "Why? How can I remind you of a human?"

He could not lie to her, not when she was staring at him with the full power of her gaze. "You're a little like her – beautiful, dangerous, free . . . " _More than a little unstable,_ he added to himself.

"I have not always been free." But Amara did not deny that she had always been dangerous.

"Neither was she. But damn, she tried."

"Hmm." The Darkness mulled over this for a moment before wondering, "What happened to her?"

Illyria stayed silent. This was the Winchester's question to answer.

"Bad luck. Me." A shadow of something much like shame passed over the hunter's face, and he looked down at his boots. "Kinda the same thing, really," he said in a small voice.

"She must have been quite the mortal for you to compare her to me."

Dean shrugged. "Maybe. I don't know how you'd judge things like that. She was just Faith."

Amara reached out across the space between them to place her flat palm on the man's chest. "You carry much grief, Dean," she observed. "Wouldn't you like me to relieve you of that?"

"Everyone's got their crap to carry," countered the man, uncomfortable with where this discussion seemed to be taking them.

"Would you have her back, if you could?" wondered Amara.

He did his best to set her straight. "Doesn't work that way. We tried it once – disaster is putting it lightly. No, Faith deserves to be where she is, up in Heaven. She deserves to be happy."

"And you, Dean Winchester?" the Darkness inquired archly. "What do you deserve?"

Illyria looked up from examining her nails to watch the hunter with her intense blue gaze..

"Well," gulped Dean, "I don't know about deserving. But for what it's worth, I'd like to live."

* * *

Faith was watching reruns of peak mid-90s television on Steve's crappy TV set, ignoring the horny teenager as he kept trying to make out with her, when Castiel appeared in front of the screen, blocking her view.

The angel smiled in an uncharacteristically friendly way. "Hiya, hot stuff," he greeted her, for once sounding as if he hadn't just swallowed a bucketful of gravel. "You might want to work on your alarm system."

Springing to her feet, the Slayer scrambled over the back of the couch, putting the furniture in between whoever the heck was currently wearing Castiel's face and herself. "Not Castiel," she said aloud, more for his benefit than hers. "Who are you?" She squinted, thinking fast. What could possess another angel's vessel? Crowley might, but he would never refer to her as 'hot stuff.' Faith threw out the idea of her worst case scenario. "Are you Lucifer?"

"Right in one, girlie." Lucifer winked, and the sight of Cass winking was enough to make the Slayer wince. "Out of curiosity, how'd you guess?"

"Castiel knows better than to try and flirt with me. Seriously, is there no such thing as privacy around here?"

"Not for me," grinned the Devil. "I'm the new God – of Heaven and Hell and everything in between."

Seeing Castiel with so much facial animation was discombobulating. Faith struggled to remember where she had left the oil change coupon that was her ticket out of this memory into a new one. "Okay . . . so why are you here?" she asked in an effort to keep him talking.

"I wanted to see what Dean Winchester's whore looked like – your reputation precedes you." Lucifer cocked his head to the left and considered her. "You know, I always thought you'd be one of the girls who came over to my side. And after that shindig with Kakistos? Both Azazel and Alistair swore we had you in the bag."

It might be true, but it was equally likely to be nonsense, and Faith had no desire to humor him. After all, dudes that went by "The Father of Lies" were notoriously untrustworthy. "So why are you wearing Cass? Why are you _really_ here?"

"Like I said," shrugged the Devil. "I was curious."

"Right," said Faith skeptically. At last, she caught a glimpse of the advert on Steve's table at the far end of the couch and began edging toward it. "Well, now I hope your curiosity is satisfied."

"You should be dead," Lucifer said lightly, as if commenting on the weather.

That made no sense. The Slayer side-stepped closer to the end table. "I am dead."

"You should have been dead far sooner."

"Right," repeated Faith. Her hand closed on the advert, and she pressed it to her nose. Faith was spinning through the Axis, leaving Lucifer behind. As soon as her feet landed on gravel, the Slayer was off and running again, racing from memory to memory until she finally hit the Roadhouse.

Ash and Pamela looked up as she tumbled onto the splintery wooden planking of the bar, and staggered to her feet, swearing a blue streak.

"What's wrong?" asked Ash, his usual casual attitude replaced by concern.

"Bar the doors," gasped Faith. "Lock it down. The Devil's running Heaven."

" _What_?" yelled Pamela at the same time that Ash demanded, "Are you sure?"

The Slayer caught her breath. "Yes, I'm sure. He just stopped by my place for a little chat," she finished with a touch of hysteria.

"He _what?_ "

"Not good." Ash made the understatement of the year.

Faith snorted. "Just . . . just lock it down."

The man picked his laptop off of the bar counter and began typing away furiously. "On it. We're going to need eyes on Middle-earth, to find out how this happened."

"Enough of the Hobbit references, dude. But, yeah. We're fighting blind. We need intel."

Pamela suggested, "As much as I hate the idea, we could contact Castie-"

"No, Pam," the Slayer cut her off. "Castiel is out of this one. Lucifer's wearing him."

"Sh-t," breathed the dead psychic.

Faith let out a strangled laugh. Sh-t really did about cover it.

* * *

**May 15** **th** **, 2018, Louisville, Kentucky, 1:12 p.m.**

Staring up at the two deities, hardly believing his luck that he was still standing in one piece, Dean Winchester cleared his throat. Before they disarmed the soul bomb that Rowena had placed inside of his chest, he needed to make a request. "Chuck, I mean God. There's one thing."

"Ahh," said Chuck discerningly. "Faith? You want me to bring her back to life."

"No," he answered thickly. The word stuck like tar in his throat, but he had to force it out. "What's dead should stay dead. I want you to – what I'm asking is – I mean that – Castiel said that his friends had a place for her in Heaven, but I – I'm not sure. Could you make sure she's okay up there?"

Chuck frowned as though confused. "Are you sure that is all that you want?"

The hunter swallowed. This was incredibly difficult, one of the most difficult decisions that he had ever have to make, but he had already come to his answer. "I'm sure."

When Chuck and Amara merely regarded him with skepticism, he added, "Don't get me wrong. I wish like hell that she was still around. But like I said, what's dead should stay dead. She an' me, we've both learned that the hard way."

"I will grant your request." began Chuck slowly. "For what it's worth, I always was rather pleased that you two found each other."

God raised his hand, and a stream of blue and white light shot from Dean's chest.

As the agony of carrying thousands of souls inside him gradually faded, the hunter's eyes flicked back to Amara. She was watching him in curiosity, her head tilted to the side. The Darkness reached for her brother's hand, and she spoke, "Thank you, Dean. For giving me that which I have most desired. I will return your kindness."

_What the hell did that mean?_ the man wondered as the two deities merged into two pillars – one of fire, one of smoke – that writhed and twisted around each other until finally disappearing into the sky.

* * *

Faith was sitting cross-legged on the roof of Bobby's ancient Chevelle, fiddling with a fiendish-looking contraption made of broken windshield wipers in her lap. Ash had mentioned something about switching their regular poker game to Dungeons and Dragons, and Faith was trying to get this homemade hand-crossbow working in time to threaten his manhood if he tried to trade her face-cards for a D20. She was deeply engrossed in teasing the spring mechanism, so much so that when someone spoke, the Slayer jumped and nearly fell off of the car.

"Hello, Faith."

Dropping the windshield wiper crossbow, Faith slid over the car roof and into the front seat, where she had left her angel blade. She didn't travel anywhere without it, not after that Lucifer incident a while back. The blasted Son of the Morning had cleared out of Heaven – if Alirael's rumor mill was to be believed – but Faith was taking zero chances.

She glared at the two intruders – a short, scruffy man and a statuesque brunette – and demanded, "Who are you? Angels come to gawk at the sad little Slayer? If so, get lost. I don't work with angels, and I don't talk to demons. So frak off."

"Do they really recognize you so little, these creations of yours?" The strange woman asked the man with an odd tilt of her head, seeming inordinately amused.

Faith followed this exchange, her eyes tracking from one figure to the next. "Who are you?" she repeated.

"A friend asked me to check in on you," said the man.

"That's nice. Now tell me who the Hell you are," snarled Faith, and the clear blue sky overhead rumbled with thunder.

"I like her," murmured the woman conspiratorially. She advanced forward. "I am Amara. And this is my brother – apparently he has chosen to go by Chuck."

Faith stared at them in confusion, and then her slow brain put two and two together. Amara. Amara. Amara – "Wait – he – you – I – and then – hold that – _you_!"

She whirled on the male figure, debated taking a step in his direction, and then settled for just glaring and twitching with anger. "You sick, twisted sonnuvabitch," she swore, censoring herself before she told the Creator of the Universe to go and do something anatomically impossible. "You _wrote_ about them! They were dying and bleeding and praying for you to come and get off your ass and help, and you just _wrote_ about them!"

Hands clenched into fists, Faith turned to the woman. "So. You're this amorphous Darkness that everyone's been so panicked about, huh?'

"Yes," grinned Amara, still amused. She nodded towards her brother. "Please don't stop. It's so refreshing to see someone else yelling at him."

"O-kay." The Slayer looked back to Chuck – God? – whoever he was. None of her anger had abated, but her self-control was reasserting itself. "Why are you here?"

Chuck cleared his throat. "Dean asked me to look in on you."

"Is he – " Faith gritted her teeth. "Is he okay?"

"He appears to be well," shrugged Amara. "As far as appearances go. He is alive, if that was your question."

Well, that was absolutely not comforting in the slightest. "Chuck?"

""Dean and Sam are alive and well."

"And Lucifer?" The Slayer's fingers clenched tighter around the hilt of the angel blade.

Once again, Amara answered for her brother. "I banished him."

Faith glanced back to the Darkness. "Where to?"

"I . . . I do not know."

"Well, that's not going to cause people trouble anytime soon," grumbled the woman sarcastically.

"Er, right," said Chuck.

Useless. The Big Man Upstairs, the God of Heaven and Earth, and he was . . . completely and utterly useless. If Faith had believed in divine intervention, she might have felt a little despairing. As it was, she just rolled her eyes. "If there isn't anything else, I've got a vampire to Slay. Same damn vampire every night," she complained, "but I've almost got the round-off back handspring double backflip stake into the heart combo down cold. Maybe this time I'll do it with my eyes shut."

With that parting shot, the Slayer turned on her heel and walked away, down the gravel driveway that would lead her to the road and the cemetery beyond that. As she rounded the corner, a low female chuckle drifted along to her ears on the afternoon breeze.

"I like her," said Amara for the second time. "Are you sure we can't – ?"

"I made a promise," countered Chuck regretfully.

Faith shivered as the air around her blurred into darkness. _What was that?_ she wondered, scaling the cemetery fence with an urge to get the seven feet of sharp, tall iron between her and the two gods – should they choose to follow. Faith had no idea, but she had an uncomfortable feeling that whatever it was God and his dysfunctional sister were discussing, it was not good.

* * *

**June 7** **th** **, 2018, Lebanon, Kansas, 6:42 p.m.**

"Who is this?"

"Huh?"

His mother was slowly making her way through the small stack of dog-eared photos that had so far managed to survive Sam and Dean. She had pulled a particular picture out of the pile and was frowning at it.

Sam glanced down at the image in her hands – and instantly winced. Trust his mother to track that down. At the time that the photo was taken – to be more accurate, at the time that Lily had snapped the picture on her expensive phone like an overly smug ninja and then sent it to Dean the next year inside a card bearing the legend "I know where you sleep" as a combination birthday present and blackmail – the blackmail photo had been taken on their monster-hunting trip to the wilds of Wisconsin, when Sam had been soul-free.

The photo itself wasn't anything special, just his brother and Faith sleeping in the same bed. They weren't cuddling or spooning; they weren't even touching. But Sam always felt uncomfortable looking at that picture, as if he was intruding on a moment that was never meant for him. He felt even more awkward now, knowing that there was no way on earth his repressed, private older brother would have intentionally left that particular picture in the stack for Mary to review.

"Hello?" echoed his mother. "Who's the woman here?"

"That's, uh, I think that's Dean's," said Sam, lightyears away from being a smooth operator, making an unsuccessful grab for the photo in question.

Mary easily dodged his outstretched hands. "Sam," she said, injecting the word with just a touch of impatience. "Who is she?"

Drat. He could not see a single way out of this. The hunter cleared his throat and shuffled his feet. "That's Faith."

"And who is she? This photo doesn't look very old, but your brother didn't mention her."

Sam exhaled. "No, he wouldn't." Toeing the fine line between answering his mother's curiosity and protecting Dean's privacy, he said, "Faith was a Vampire Slayer – one of the better ones. She died a few years back. Dean doesn't talk about it."

"Oh." Mary stared more intently at the photo. "Were they . . . were they close?"

"Yeah." He gently tugged the picture out of her grip and tucked it away into the back of the pile. "You could say that." Sam held out his hands and helped his mother up to her feet. "Come on – I think dinner's almost ready."

"You don't want me to ask him about her, do you?" guessed Mary shrewdly.

The hunter hesitated, torn between the truth and something that would be easier to hear. Finally, he said, "You can ask all you want, Mom; he just won't answer."

* * *

"I told you not to bet so high against Pamela, Wes," Faith slid into a wooden chair across the table from her former Watcher and handed him a condensation-laden glass of the closest thing to a dark ale that the Roadhouse carried. "She cheats."

"She's blind!" said Wesley, as if ableism explained why he had not listened to her. He took a slow sip from the ale.

"And a seer," the Slayer added helpfully.

Wesley sprayed his drink across the table. "Oh, of all the . . . Hence the gales of laughter from the audience when I accused you of peeking," he complained.

Grinning, Faith wiped droplets of ale off of her face with the sleeve of her black jacket. "Yep, pretty much. Oh, and I was, you know."

"What?"

"Peeking."

"You rotten girl," grumbled Wesley, and he sought comfort in what remained of his glass.

"Not that much younger than you, Wes," she reminded him.

There was an awkward pause.

"No," Wesley Wyndham-Pryce said finally, "no, I suppose you're not."

Another awkward silence ensued, and then he gamely continued, "Thank you, by the way."

"For the drink? No need. I owed you for last time, anyway."

"No, not for that," the Englishman corrected her. "For bringing me into this little cabal of yours. It is – almost – rather touching."

Shifting in her chair uncomfortably, Faith summoned her courage. "Hey, there's something I've been meaning to talk to you about, Wes."

He raised his eyebrows. "Oh?"

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry about Sunnydale and LA and what I did to you, and – "

"Stop, Faith. That was the past. And I have finally learned that we must let the past rest." Wesley smiled crookedly. "Or else we never will. I propose a toast."

The Slayer leaned back from the table, surprised. "Really?"

"Yes, really." Wesley raised his glass. "To new beginnings."

"I like that." Faith lifted her own beer bottle. "To new beginnings."


	16. Dust in the Wind

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Almost three and a half years ago, a Slayer and a hunter walked into a bar. Over 600,000 words later, this is how their story ends. 
> 
> Thank you all for sticking with this fic - and a hundred thousand thank-you's to Zavier Starwood, the best beta reader a girl could ask for. I'll be back in a few weeks with some Faith & Dean projects I've been toying around with: a Sync/Criminal Minds crossover; a series of one-shots set in "what might have been" Montana domesticity; and maybe a few other things. And I'll always consider requests.

 

* * *

**October 23** **rd** **, 2004, Lumberton, North Carolina, 10:45 p.m.**

"I am not lying down in that," the hunter refused point-blank. He frowned at the woman sprawled out across the dew-laden grass, grinning in a way that suggested she was perpetually incapable of taking anything seriously.

"Geez, Dean," she teased, staring up at him. "Don't be such a wuss."

"It's cold, and it's wet," complained the man. "And unless you can magically make a laundromat appear in this one-horse town, I don't got any jeans for tomorrow but these."

Faith rolled her eyes. "We're in frigging North Carolina, man. It ain't that cold. Get down here."

Realizing that she wouldn't let up until he did what she wanted, Dean grumbled, "Fine." He lowered himself onto the wet earth beside her, close enough that he could feel the warmth emanating from her body but not so close that their shoulders touched. Dean had learned the hard way that when the Slayer started talking with her hands, there was a decent chance that he would get whacked in the face.

They lay there in silence for a few minutes, and then the hunter groused, "Can't we just dig him up, stake him, and get on with it?"

"No," Faith told him. "Because if we finish early, then I have to call Robin about training the little Slayers. If this goes until midnight, I can call him back tomorrow."

"You really dislike him that much?" asked Dean.

"We slept together once."

He glanced over at her curiously. "Any good?"

Shrugging, she said, "First guy after women's prison, so he got extra points for that. I mean, even without grading on a curve, he wasn't too bad, but he got a bit possessive after – like he was gonna fix me." The corners of Faith's mouth turned downwards. "I didn't need that. I can fix my own damn self."

"What's there to fix?" joked the hunter.

"And that's why I like you. Hey, look!" Faith grabbed his wrist and jerked his arm up into the sky, pointing to a slanting line of three faint stars far above them. "Orion!"

The hunter pulled his arm back. "You know any constellations other than that one? 'Cuz that's the third time you've shown it to me."

"Oh, sure, I know lots," drawled Faith. "There's the Dippers – the Big one, the Little. An' the North Star . . . and that's it. Okay, you got me," the woman admitted. "Maybe I'm not astronomer material."

"No time like now to learn." Dean scooted a little closer on the grass and pointed out some of the other constellations that he knew. "That's Ursa Major, the big bear. And Ursa Minor – "

"The little bear?"

"Yep. And there's Canis Major, the big dog himself."

"Hey, Dean?" the Slayer wondered tentatively.

"Yeah?"

"You ever think about do-overs?"

"Like popovers?" he teased, dropping his arm back down to the grass, the astronomy lesson ended for the evening.

Faith clarified, "No, like second chances."

"Maybe," caged Dean. "What's on your mind?"

The Slayer pursed her lips. "If I did things over, I wouldn't sleep with Robin."

"Okay."

"And I – I think I'd try not to screw up in Sunnydale."

"You regret that?" he asked without judgement.

"Yeah. A lot. I was a messed-up kid."

" _Was_?" teased Dean.

She elbowed him in retaliation. "Shut up. I mean, what would you do over, if you could?"

After a moment, the hunter said quietly, "Sam. The way things went down when he left for Stanford. It was, uh, not good."

Faith kicked her right Doc Marten into his left work boot in a silent gesture of camaraderie.

"Is that your way of saying you wanna knock boots with me?" Dean asked, once again making fun of her. "I could help you forget all about Robin the possessive ex-lover boy."

"Maybe later. Hush." The Slayer sprang to her feet as something creaked in the earth below them. She threw herself forward into a round-off back handspring double backflip as Bill Tompkins clambered out of his grave in an upwards explosion of dust and grass, her gymnastics culminating in a perfectly-placed stake into the newly risen vampire's heart.

"Ha!" Faith danced backwards in celebration, throwing her arms up into the air. "I did it! With my damn eyes closed!" She continued her happy dance. Thinking aloud, she said, "Maybe next time I'll hold the stake in my teeth."

"Do you always talk to yourself?" grumbled the hunter, his voice suddenly several tones deeper.

Faith whirled around, her brown eyes wide in shock, jerked from the memory into recognition of her reality. That line was not part of the nightly script. She stared at the man standing six feet away from her, no longer lying on the grass. Hardly daring to hope, she said, "Dean?"

"Hey." He looked older than he had sixty seconds ago, older even than when she had last seen him in the land of the living. He seemed more tired, with deeper lines at the corner of his eyes.

The Slayer rocked back onto her heels. "Are you . . . are you real?" She wouldn't put it past the winged nut-jobs to try to mess with her head - especially after last week's escapade with Wes and Ash all the way to the Garden. She had memorized Joshua's cursing for later replay. It was absolutely lovely, how pissed off she could still make the upper management.

"What do you think?" countered Dean. He sounded exhausted.

Her heart leapt up into her throat, and the blood was pounding in her ears, but Faith had to be sure before she allowed her hopes to soar too high. "I need you to prove it."

"Okay." Frowning, the man shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "How's this for proof? The night before I died – the first time that I died – I fell asleep on the phone while you sang me Puff the Magic Dragon."

Faith winced. "In hindsight, that's kinda embarrassing."

Dean smiled wearily at her. "I didn't mind."

Finally, the Slayer allowed herself to believe. Faith charged forward, throwing herself into him. Going up onto her tip-toes, she wrapped her arms around his neck as the hunter's arms locked about her waist, squeezing so tightly that she could barely breathe. She returned the embrace with equal force and buried her face in the black cotton poly of his military-style jacket. As she held on for dear life, the woman fancied she could almost feel the lub-dub of his heart beating against her cheek.

After a long moment, Faith extricated herself and stepped backwards. "What . . . what happened?" Her unspoken question, _Why are you here?_ hung in the air between them.

"Give me a minute," said Dean roughly. Without waiting for a reply, he pulled her back in, his chin resting on the top of her head. "I haven't done this in four years."

"It's only been that long?" murmured Faith into his jacket. She gave him the requested minute and another besides before pulling away just enough to tilt her head back and look up at him. "Seriously, Dean, what happened?"

The hunter did not meet her eyes. "Sam and I got ourselves into a spot of trouble," he answered slowly. "Only way out was for one of us to die. So we made a deal with a Reaper, and I made her promise to take me instead of Sammy. I - I couldn't let her kill him. And I think . . . I think it was time." He glanced around the cemetery. "Where is this?"

"You don't remember?" Faith focused on the easy question instead of the potential bomb that he had just dropped. _Damn it._

"We've spent a lot of nights in a lot of cemeteries," he reminded her.

That was fair enough. "It's some place in North Carolina. I forget the name. October two thousand and four, I think."

Dean whistled through his teeth. "Oh-four, huh? That's . . . that was a while back."

"Yeah," agreed Faith. She tugged on his jacket sleeve. "We've got about thirty minutes before the vampire rises again. You wanna – you wanna sit down?"

"Okay."

Moving in awkward tandem, they sat, their backs propped against a family gravestone of ruby red granite, and leaned against each other. Dean snuck another sideways look at the Slayer. He could still hardly believe she was there.

With a deep inhale, the hunter started explaining, beginning the exhausting saga of the Mark, Rowena, the Book of the Damned, killing Death, the Darkness, Amara, Sam getting trapped in the Cage, Castiel willfully signing himself over to Lucifer, Lucifer himself, Chuck being God, Metatron – the whole sh-tty train wreck. He told her of his mother, returned from the dead, and of the interfering British Men of Letters (Faith scoffed at their similarity to her own detested Watcher's Council).

He ended with being captured by the Secret Service; of Sam's and his stay in super-secret Appalachian Guantanamo; and his slow slide into catatonia until he had finally thought to contact Billie.

As he spoke, he felt some of his perpetual fatigue fading away. Deep in his bones, Dean had needed this. No one listened like Faith did – not to him, anyway. She stayed silent for the most part, occasionally making soft sounds of sympathy, encouragement, and, rarely, derision. When he finished, Dean allowed his words to trail into silence.

Sensing his diffidence, Faith elbowed him gently in the ribs. "Hey, bozo. Aren't you going to ask what I've been up to?"

The hunter gazed up at the star-strewn sky above them. "Revolutionizing Heaven, no doubt."

Faith snickered. He wasn't far wrong. "I found Ash and the Roadhouse, like you told me. We've got a weekly poker game going on there now. There's a lot of people who will want to see you – Ellen, Jo, Rufus, this peppy redhead called Charlie, and oh, yeah, an old codger who goes by the name of Bobby Singer."

Dean swallowed against the sudden lump in his throat. "And none of your people?"

"Wes drops in from time to time," Faith said slowly. "And I see my first Watcher, Diana, every now and then. I thought about going to check in on Buffy's mom once, but I decided against it. Mostly though, I've been exploring the Axis. Made it all the way to the Garden not too long ago – it's hard to track time here."

"Busy bee."

The Slayer shrugged. "Gotta do something. A girl can only sleep for so long."

"Do you? Sleep, I mean?"

Exhaling, she told him, "There's a place here . . . one of my memories. It's the scrapyard at Bobby's. The afternoon after you came back from the dead. It's warm, and it's quiet. When I first got here, all I did was sleep there and stake vamps here. It's not far – we can take the road outside the cemetery if you want."

"I'd like that." Dean grimaced. "I haven't seen sunshine in, well, way too long." Rising, he pulled her to her feet. "Lead the way."

They climbed over the wrought iron spiked fence and set off down the gravel road. Somewhere back in the woods was the hidden Impala, but Faith preferred the walk. It felt more real. Besides, it was less than a mile to the salvage yard.

But instead of Singer Salvage, when they rounded the bend in the road they found themselves in a halfway-decent hotel room. Dean was sitting in a chair at the lone table, watching the Slayer from her position in the bathroom doorway. Faith reached up and felt her hair. It was carefully twisted into a severe French braid. She examined the pile of gloves, snow boots, and other wintery accoutrements by the door. Wisconsin. 2012. The morning after they had killed the Sliver Cat. The Slayer raised her eyebrows. This was not one of her usual places.

Dean smiled, pleasantly surprised.

"This is your happy memory?" wondered Faith. She took a step forward, half-driven by the essence of the memory that still existed. In new memories, you always found yourself repeating the original events. On a subconscious level, you wanted to follow the past, wherever it sent you, wherever it took you.

The hunter seemed to realize this as much as she did, for his green eyes gleamed with amusement when she dropped herself gracelessly into his lap.

"It was a good morning." Dean brushed an errant lock of wispy hair away from her face and tucked it behind her ear. "Had three of my favorite things in it: you, me, sex . . ."

Faith snorted and rested her hands on his shoulders. He was awfully close, close enough that Faith could easily kiss him if she wanted to. She wasn't sure that she wanted to. "Classy, dude."

"Just telling the truth."

"Don't get me wrong, that sex was good, but not like 'make a film and rewatch it' good."

"You didn't think it was film-worthy?" snickered Dean.

"You did?" Faith was skeptical.

"Maybe not our best," he admitted. Then, in a more serious voice, he said, "I told you that night that you . . . that you were the one thing that made sense. The one thing that stayed the same."

His eyes were locked on hers, and Faith felt mildly uncomfortable. Revisiting that confession was a little too much – too much for him to say and too much for her to hear.

"I was ready to go," murmured Dean, the words hovering fragile in the inches of air between them. "When I asked Death to off me. When I had Rowena power me up as a soul bomb. When Sam and I got locked up by Uncle Sam."

"Dean - "

"And when things were really bad, you know what happened?"

"What?" she whispered, half-afraid of the answer.

"I'd dream about you, Faith. I'd dream about you and this morning, or the night before, or any other g-ddamned day when it was just you and me. When things made sense."

"Dean . . ."

"Let me finish. I'm not – I'm not so good with words. I missed you, Faith. I never stopped missing you."

"Dean." She said his name a third time, imbuing the word with all the things she had never found a way to say. "I missed you, too."

"Good." Relieved at having gotten that off his chest, Dean stood, lifting both of them off the chair and setting her back on the carpet. He glanced thoughtfully at the bed before coming to a decision. "Can you take me to the yard?" he asked her. "I need the sun. Please."

"Of course," Faith promised him. "We just need to find the road, wherever it is in this place."

They looked at each other, then said in unison, "The map!"

Dean crouched over the pile of outerwear near the door and began rifling in his coat pockets for the Wisconsin road map that he had squirreled away somewhere in there.

The Slayer cleared her throat. It was time, maybe, to address the elephant in the room. "So I guess . . . You showing up in my memories, me walking into yours without using the Roadhouse . . . I guess that makes us . . . soulmates?"

"Looks like," agreed Dean. "Aha!" He straightened in triumph, the folded map clutched in his hand. Catching sight of the thoughtful look on her face, he prompted, "You disappointed?"

"No," said Faith slowly. "Wait. Does this mean . . . Am I stuck in a soulmate triangle with you and your brother?"

The hunter looked up from unfolding the map and frowned. He had an uncomfortable idea of where this was headed. "Faith . . ."

"Our would you say it's more like a soulmate threeway?" she finished with a mischievous grin.

Dean winced. "Aand now I'm never gonna be able to clean my brain out. Thanks for that."

"You're welcome, cowboy. No, I'm not disappointed. Are you?" Faith asked with a trace of hesitancy.

"Actually . . ." drawled Dean. He smiled, and for a moment his constant weariness disappeared, and he was the twenty-five-year-old with the gorgeous green eyes who she had decided to work off her post-destruction of Sunnydale tension on, a hundred thousand heartaches ago. "Actually, I was kinda hoping for it."

_Fin._


End file.
